


Those Who Favor Fire

by Stealth_Noodle



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: megaflare_ff, Esper!Terra, F/F, Gen, Wordcount: 30.000-50.000, oh shit it's a long final fantasy fic get in the car!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-13
Updated: 2011-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stealth_Noodle/pseuds/Stealth_Noodle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the universe next door, Terra grows up in the Esper World. Everything goes wrong differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Omen

The cold bit deeper in the mines, clean through fur and armor. Beneath the eerie gleam of ice lurked an impossible anatomy of colors and claws. Black beads of eyes swallowed the Magitek lights.

"That must be it," said Wedge.

"If it's not," Biggs replied, "I don't wanna know what the hell it is."

For several moments there was no sound but the clanging of the engines.

Biggs cleared his throat. "I'm not carrying that thing."

"It would melt, anyway." Perhaps it was already melting; Wedge set his armor in reverse. "We're done here. This is somebody else's problem now."


	2. Awakening

It would be a betrayal of everything she had sworn herself to, but they had betrayed her first. More than that—they had betrayed everyone who might still be alive, all the lost fragments of families, her father and her mother-who-was-not. They had lied, and they had made her the guardian of their lie.

She wouldn't have believed that they could lie for so long about so much, but the truth had been seeping through all her life, widening the distance they kept from her. She should have recognized the fear in their respect, the shields around the hearts. The weight of her legacy had never been enough to keep her loneliness from rising, but tonight isolation worked to her advantage; there was no one near enough to notice her shining against the twilight, after the sun's children went to sleep and before the moon's children began to stir.

 _...so that she wouldn't try to open it. That's how the elder thinks. And you've seen how angry she gets when Yura tries to talk to her, right? But if she knew..._

Terra curled her hand over the pendant and felt it throb against the soft fur at the hollow of her throat. Breaths steady, breaths steady, and the red stone beat like a second heart.

The secret coiled up inside her was unfurling now; she had been unable to vomit it out. How had they faced her, morning after morning, and known? Would a sleeping avarice one day awaken and twist her inside out? Was she dying inside, moment by moment, like a beast?

 _...take after her parents. That mother of hers was a spy, and every bit as wicked as the rest of them, just clever enough to trick Maduin..._

She wanted to vomit again, but her twin-pulse echoed now in the stone of the gate. No time. If they found her, she didn't know what would happen, to her or to them. She needed to go alone to learn whether the lost ones could still be saved. She needed to be alone when she learned whether to hate her father.

Something beyond sang to her. Now that she knew to listen for it, she knew that it had called to her all her life, waiting for her to create a hollow place for it to resonate.

 _Your heart belongs outside._ The spike of panic in her blood nearly made her turn back. She had no idea how deep her humanity ran, how close she was to falling in and drowning.

It sang inside her like bells and fire. She could not turn back.

Hot wind rushed through the crack growing in the stone. Hair and fur mingled behind her, then fell still. The pendant calmed until nothing beat but her heart.

She could not turn back.

* * *

 

"Your mother and father were heroes, Terra. They sacrificed everything to give my predecessor time enough to seal the gate." The elder wore her gentle face as she floated lower, keeping her folded legs and draped fabric from touching the ground, and extended a muscular arm. The pendant glittered in her palm. "Their final wish was for you to carry on their legacy once you came of age."

For a moment Terra felt small and absurd, to be offered such a burden by someone who had six powerful, graceful arms with which to bear it. But her parents' blood and magic flowed through her, and she would not always be a gawkish girl lost under her own hair. Terra bowed her head reverently, shivering at the abrupt weight of the stone in her hand. The chain slid between her fingers.

The smiling face greeted her when she looked up: "May your love of them protect us all."

She should have suspected. The elder had never been sentimental.

* * *

 

Beyond were darkness and storms. Lightning revealed the outline of a bridge ahead. Terra turned, and the next bolt showed her a mountain floating in a void. The only other light radiated dimly from her body.

Thunder echoed inside her. Another strike made her too aware of her bones and her blood, of the magic crackling under her skin as if it meant to answer the lightning. This was worse than drinking the sylphs' wine; this was everything inside her racing to be the first to explode.

Think, think, or they'd pour out after her when they felt this pouring in—

Terra clutched the pendant and staggered forward between the bursts of her thoughts, free hand shaking as it tried to land against the gate. Her claws left molten gashes in the stone. When she asked—not asked, the magic blazing inside her now only demanded—the mountain to cover up what she'd done, it crumpled like paper.

* * *

 

The gate became her sanctuary, her solace in solitude. Perched high on the rocks, she wrapped herself up in the story of an orphan of fallen heroes; in darkness and rain she needed no other shelter. When Yura followed her here, scaring the rabbits and birds with his careless stomping, it felt like trespassing.

"You don't understand," he said, over and over, as if he were as ancient and wise as the elder rather than a boy only a few years her senior. She could feel something raging inside him like a storm in a bottle. "They haven't told you—" Yura choked and fell furiously silent. Most of his arguments ended this way.

"They've told me enough," she lied, because her stomach twisted when whenever she wondered how her parents' magicite had shattered. A bush burst into flame beside him. Most of her arguments ended this way.

But this argument echoed unfinished from her rocks. Terra found herself looking for him, uncertain whether she meant to listen or berate him further, when she trespassed on the conversation of his friends. She couldn't stop listening.

She should have suspected the first time Yura's throat closed.

 

* * *

Terra flew through the fire and the darkness until she burst forth into a wrong-colored sky. Here the air was thin and cold, smelling strongly of something she couldn't identify but which reminded her of Bismarck's children. The wind whipped giddily around her.

She had to find Bismarck and all the lost pieces of families, but the sky extended forever. Beneath her was water, more than she'd ever dreamt existed, dazzlingly blue and white in the glare of the sun. Something wilder than joy or fear burned inside her. Trying to control it was like trying to sculpt fire.

Looping circles around a cloud, she strained for signs of other espers, but her senses were convulsing. Her spine sparked like Ixion's horn. Here was the whimper of frail magic, there the tug of something old and sacred (but she was impure, she had no place), and farther away the echoes of heartbeats with thunder inside.

The sky tore around her as she flew.

More than water flashed beneath her—mountains grass forests metal—but nothing could deter her from the sense of another esper alive, alone, waiting. She stopped once, panting and shaking, on a mountain that nearly collided with her, but resting made her blood itch. She would hollow out to ashes at this pace, but she could not stop. She could burn away like dry grass without going out.

When she broke through the black clouds spreading beneath her, the thunder became more than echoes, and rain pelted down like teeth. She was half-blind; she could not stop. Wood splintered under her claws. The world shattered around her.

And suddenly she could stop, but the fire inside her was insatiable, too hot to extinguish. Terra keened and scrabbled at the surface beneath her, eyes rolling back in her head to escape the light.

"Flashes and fulgarites," said an unfamiliar voice that resonated deep. It paused a moment while she howled. "Calm yourself, child. The gods are not here to dampen you."

"I can't," she rasped, but hearing her own voice, even broken, was enough to slow her pulse. If she concentrated, she could feel the place where something had been ripped free in the back of her mind, a hole through which her magic was erupting. Terra breathed deeply, shivering, and focused on healing the wound. She was here to save others; she couldn't let herself fall apart.

Inch by inch, she began to right herself. Her eyelids parted reluctantly on a dizzying carpet pattern, glittering with bloodied glass. The jagged maw of what had been a window let in the driving rain.

Glass and blood flecked her fur, as well. She glowed as dimly as a star swallowed by clouds. When Terra hovered a hand over a long cut in her thigh, she found the well of her magic nearly dry. "I'm sorry," she said, wincing as she tried to twist around to see who she'd found.

"Be still, child." A white beard flickered through the corner of her vision. A few moments later, she heard the rush of a water, followed by the whiff of gas and the sense of fire.

Hands shaking, Terra began to pick the glass out of herself. Aching cold and exhaustion crept into her hollow places, encouraging her to curl up on the floor and sleep until she was full and strong again.

But she was here to save the lost ones, not to collapse in their homes and expect them to take care of her. Terra shook the shards out of her hair and inhaled the metallic tang of lightning that had nothing to do with the storm raging outside. The elder spoke of him as if he were dust, but here he was—alive, whole, and, from the smell of it, brewing tea.

When he returned to her field of vision, obscured by his own robes and beard, a teacup and saucer in either hand, Terra felt for the first time entirely justified. She tried to say his name, but her throat was a desert that desiccated sound.

"Here," he said, setting the tea on a low table. "Off the floor, now."

Even without contact, Terra knew him as well as she knew them all: their names, their stories, their children, all the pieces they left behind when they hadn't died. When he extended his hand to help her rise, she clutched it and said, "Thank you." Then, fervently, fingers wrapping tight around his wrist as magic and identity flowed between them: "You're _alive_."

"After a fashion."

She tried to ask what he meant, but all her attention was required to let him guide her trembling muscles the few steps to a chair. She brushed off the backs of her legs before sinking into the cushion.

When her arms stopped trembling, she reached for the cup and saucer nearer her. The ceramic clattered only slightly. A sip was enough to confirm that this was darker and bitterer than the fragrant red tea of home, but the heat still soothed her. Terra lowered her face until all she breathed was steam.

Ramuh had already settled into the chair opposite hers when she looked up. "It's been a long time, Terra," he said.

"Eighteen years." She addressed her rippling reflection: "I don't even remember you. I thought you were dead."

His silence set the cup and saucer to rattling again in her hands. He knew, and must have known even before he took her hand, but she couldn't bring herself to confess. As Terra struggled to swallow the emotions welling up in her chest, he said heavily, "So the gate has been breached."

Gravity collected in her pendant until it threatened to crush her heart. "I breached it."

This silence lasted longer and compelled her to set her tea back on the table to avoid spilling it. "Oh, _child_ ," Ramuh said at last, and Terra's sense of vindication began to ebb. The chair refused to allow her to sink any deeper.

"I tried to close it behind me," she told her feet. "I think I brought down half a mountain on it."

"No doubt that will delay the Empire for a few days, at best, once it is discovered that the seal is gone." Ramuh let out a low, rumbly sigh. "Assuming some impetuous young creature such as yourself hasn't already persuaded Titan to crack your half-mountain open from the inside."

Terra opened her mouth to apologize and found that she still wasn't sorry. Instead she looked up, curled her hands over the arms of the chair to steady them, and tried to use her sense of heaviness to flatten her voice. "They lied to me. They told me that you all died. I came here to save you."

She held his gaze until he was the one to look away. "You've certainly inherited your father's bloody-mindedness," he muttered, pushing himself out of his chair. "Let me show you what you've come to save."

When Terra forced her grip to relax, she found that her claws had left holes in the upholstery. She forced her palms flat as she watched Ramuh cross to the portion of the room that served as his kitchen, where his teakettle still rested on what looked like a decorative approach to a fireplace. He rose up on his toes, beard billowing, and began a careful, ritualistic rearrangement of the contents of a large cupboard. When he lowered himself to his heels, his hands were cupped around a throbbing force that drew Terra's heartbeats in sync.

He moved more slowly as he returned to her and spoke in strained tones. "When the Empire captured us, we were taken to a nightmarish place the likes of which hasn't existed since the War of the Magi. We were helpless there, all of us. Only the seal prevented them from subjecting our entire race to the same fate."

Terra's claws slid back into her chair. "How can they be so powerful without magic?"

"They've stolen ours," Ramuh replied. "And even without it, they have ways of dampening us. Not as the gods do, to prevent harm, but to restrain us so that they can drain our powers and use them to fuel their mechanical abominations. They drained us to husks; when I last saw Shiva, she was little more than magicite wrapped in skin."

The name pierced Terra deep and lodged in her heart. Until yesterday, she'd called Shiva her mother.

Distance softened Ramuh's voice. "Perhaps a year ago—forgive me, I lose track of time here—several of us attempted to flee during an accident. Only four of us escaped into the woods; only I survived." He opened his hands, revealing three glittering, throbbing pieces of magicite.

Terra pressed her fingers to each stone and listened, fighting the tightness in her chest and throat. "Siren. Cait Sith. Kirin." These were her heroes, not obliterated in battle but slaughtered as they fled something too powerful for four espers to stand against. Her lips trembled as heat spilled from her eyes.

"I abandoned them," said Ramuh. His tone was calm, practiced, self-incrimination by rote. "Cait Sith drove our pursuers to madness with his final breath, but I was the only one with strength enough to flee their unfocused violence. My fallen comrades preserved my life; I have managed only to preserve their remains."

If he wanted absolution, Terra couldn't be the one to give it to him. Instead she held an uncertain breath before asking, "What about the others?" Her last two words came out awkwardly, having been "my father" until they reached her tongue.

Ramuh shook his head. "It was only our area that was damaged; had we tried to free them, we would have lost our chance to escape."

Terra wiped her eyes and nose roughly with the back of her hand. "I'm going to save them."

"Don't be foolish. Three of us died getting _out_ of that unnatural prison. If you try to enter, they will take you, as well."

As a child, she had twirled alone in the forest, pretending her hair was a cape and the leaves were diamond-bright snowflakes. When Kujata had one of his cold days, she picked up the ice he left behind and held it until she had nothing but stinging palms and wet fur. "I won't just leave them," she said. "That's why I came here." No sense, she decided, in adding that she no longer belonged among the espers; her heritage made this obvious.

"Be reasonable," he began, and whatever came after was lost in a faint rhythm tapping like rain against the back of Terra's mind, seeking its echo. Her magic stirred and sang inside her.

She leapt to her feet, ears twitching, adrenaline flooding out her exhaustion. "Do you feel that?"

Ramuh's was a reluctant nod. "The first sign I've felt since my escape, other than yours."

Someone her people were suffering inside a prison so deep that not even the humming of their magic could escape. All lingering desire to settle back in for tea and rest burned away. "So one of them must have escaped."

"That's not entirely impossible," Ramuh conceded, "but this presence is so weak that it must belong to someone scarcely even alive. Don't risk your life for—"

Jagged glass scraped her back as she chased her purpose out into the darkness and storm. The wind swept away whatever Ramuh called after her.


	3. The Unforgiven

Rumor held that she didn't feel the cold, but her misty memories of the time before her infusion suggested that she now felt it more intensely, without numbness. This was how Celes needed to feel it; only the prickling in her skin and the cold burn in her throat kept her focused.

New rumors already swirled with the falling snow. She kept her gaze steady and ignored them, trying not to imagine how their counterparts swirled in the smog of Vector. Cid was too important, she told herself; Gestahl wouldn't retaliate against him for her betrayal. (She allowed herself no illusions. On the sleepless eve of her decision, she had mouthed "traitor" over and over into a mirror, until the word began to lose its sting.) Perhaps Kefka's name was woven into whispers about Doma, but rumors couldn't raise the dead or see him brought to justice.

"Guess no one ever told them it's rude to stare," said the man beside her. Sabin. She had to keep reminding herself that he was real, that she wasn't hallucinating her way through the protracted second before the Magitek weapon fired. "You sure you're warm enough?"

Borrowing his hooded cloak was a concession to concealment, not cold. "I'm fine," she said, more curtly than she meant. After giving up hope to spare herself its barbs, Celes was having trouble adapting to a world where doom was uncertain. Part of her was still living in the moment of a bitter clarity that nearly made her laugh, when she realized that it must have been Kefka's idea to burn her alive. "Thank you."

He nodded and pointed to a large building set higher in the rock, up snowy steps that showed signs of recent traffic. "That's the one the guards said, right? Not much farther now."

Halfway through Figaro Cave, she had stopped asking herself whether he would have intervened if he'd known who she was. After hearing her explanation, he had thought a moment, replied, "Well, you're obviously not on their side anymore," and helped her scavenge equipment, then announced that he was coming with her to warn Narshe. He hadn't even been terribly shocked by her magic, but his own martial arts teetered along the edge of impossibility; he had defeated Magitek-armed soldiers with only surprise and his bare hands.

The wind caught Celes's hood as she ascended the steps. Her lightning-quick grab probably risked more attention than her face would have, but adrenaline controlled her muscles now. After a breath that pulled the cold deep into her lungs, she tried the door and found it unlocked.

What use did she have for fear when she was already living on stolen time? The door swung inward on a heated room, disrupting what sounded like a heated conversation among three men gathered near a fireplace. She took a breath to condense everything vital into one sentence before she lost the moment's momentum.

Momentum and attention escaped her as Sabin hurried past her to call, "Brother!"

One of the men stepped forward, astonishment lighting a face so like Sabin's that they could not have been anything family. "Sabin!"

Celes sidled into a drafty shadow as they clasped hands and clapped each other on the back. On the way north, Sabin had talked freely about himself and his home, which Celes preferred to answering questions about herself and hers. Now the brothers' faces and postures said so much, promised to explain so much later, that her presence failed to command the attention of either of the other two men. From what she could see around Sabin, one was older, bearded, and the allover gray of a fox; of the other man she glimpsed only sandy hair and a sleeve.

"Forgive me," said the man who was apparently Sabin's brother. He paused to cough the hoarseness from his throat. "This is the esteemed elder of Narshe, who I'm discovering earned his nickname of 'Old Ironspine'—" the gray man nodded— "and this is the Returners' contact, Arvis." The other man, younger enough to sport receding but not yet entirely gray hair, offered a thin smile. "And this," he continued, setting his hand on Sabin's arm, "is my brother, Sabin."

As Sabin exchanged pleasantries, his brother's gaze fell on Celes and sprouted hooks. She had the sense that he was trying to see through her hood as he asked, "And how rude of me to have overlooked my brother's fair companion! King Edgar of Figaro is at your service, my lady. May I have the honor of—"

"The Empire is going to invade Narshe," Celes interrupted, pulling back her hood. "It captured South Figaro to use as a base."

This set the conversation on a saner course.

"As we were saying," said Arvis, with the intensity of one who had not expected an opportunity to rally but refused to waste it, "this was never about South Figaro."

The elder snorted. "Narshe has maintained its neutrality from the start. The Empire has no reason to attack us."

"You refused to hand over the esper, didn't you?" Celes pointed out. Outside the Empire, the word "esper" didn't signify weapons, electricity, civilization, and power, but it was enough to know that the Empire answered all refusals with military force.

"We told them it was ours by rights, as much as our coal, and that they had no business investigating it in the first place." The elder's scowl deepened. "And how do you know about any of this?"

All eyes but Sabin's traced every angle of her face, seeking her name even before she spoke. "I was one of their generals."

"I think you looked familiar." Edgar's smiled wryly as he held her gaze. "Celes Chere, isn't it? It's a shame the Empire kept sending Kefka as its ambassador to Figaro, when you'd have made much lovelier company."

The elder's glare flitted briefly to him. "Control yourself. Why should we heed the word of a traitor?"

For all her practice, the word still stung. Celes clenched her hands against her sides. "I'm on your side. The Empire is behind me now."

"They were going to kill her," Sabin chimed in. "I was on my way to South Figaro when I saw some of that huge armor out in the field, and they had her tied to a post so they could blast her."

Arvis stroked his chin. "Saved by coincidence, then. And I can't imagine the Empire would attempt to use such a high-profile Magitek Knight as a spy."

The elder said noting, only watched her with unyielding eyes. She returned the look, unblinking.

"My brother trusts you," said Edgar. "That's enough for me." In the look he exchanged with Sabin were more layers than Celes had the time or inclination to sift through. To the elder he added, "I can corroborate her claims, if you're willing to listen now."

The hard gaze turned to Edgar. "With evidence? I trust you wouldn't ask Narshe to send its children to war on no firmer ground than suspicion."

"My evidence is why I came to appeal to you today in person," Edgar replied. "Kefka paid me another visit. He asked me—how did it go, exactly?—what friends are for, if not to offer each other a place to stay, so he was certain I'd be delighted to provide accommodations for him and his closest battalion. When I told him that Figaro would not quarter Imperials troops, he told me that our alliance was over and flounced off." Edgar shrugged and continued, "He's reacted the same way to being served lukewarm tea, so I didn't take that part seriously. Rather, I assumed the Empire intended to attack Kohlingen again and wanted to use my castle as a shortcut under the mountains. While I was in the process of sending alerts to the local Returners, I got word of the surprise attack on South Figaro."

The elder remained impassive. "You have no proof that the Empire now intends to invade Narshe. Why don't you worry about your own nation?"

"At first, I did," Edgar replied. "But then I was reminded that when Kefka left, he laughed and told me that it was a bad time to be cold-hearted. "

Sometimes Celes had caught soldiers wondering aloud how much of Kefka's madness was for show, to give him an excuse never to mind his tongue. He took advantage, certainly, and no one believed that the position of court mage existed for any reason other than to give Kefka authority without a fixed rank. But Celes remembered, vaguely, meeting the man once before his infusion when Cid brought her with him to work, and she had retained a muddled impression of bright color, good humor, and stirring patriotism. Everything about him had twisted the next day; why should his reasoning have been immune?

"Coming from Kefka," she said aloud, "that's as good as a signed order to attack. He can't stand not to taunt. And why do you think they sent Magitek troops here earlier, if not for recon?"

Edgar gritted his teeth a moment before he rounded on the elder. "Is that true? They've already attacked you once, and you believe they won't strike again?"

"A letter affixed with Emperor Gestahl's seal said it was the work of rogue agents," the elder replied, unruffled. "When we refused to allow the Empire access to our esper, he apologized for the incident and assured us of his respect for our independence."

"And they certainly wouldn't lie about a surprise attack," muttered Arvis. "That would be _cheating_."

Celes exchanged glances of mutual exasperation with him and Edgar. The ease of it startled away some of her irritation; she had never again expected to feel even a tentative camaraderie. She picked her words carefully: "While someone was drafting that letter in Gestahl's name, the same seal was affixed to my orders to crush South Figaro quickly and ready it for use as a base."

A flicker of doubt passed over the elder's face, but it ended in narrowed eyes and a set mouth. "The Gestahlian Empire clearly trusted you. Why should any of us believe the word of someone so eager to cast aside her loyalty?"

"Tell him what you told me," whispered Sabin, helpfully. A week ago Celes had resigned herself to never having anyone on her side again.

She moistened her lips, steadied her chin. "Because of Doma."

The flicker returned. "What about Doma?"

"We received word from our contact in Vector," said Arvis. "The city is celebrating the swift end of the Imperial siege of Doma."

"Certainly a pity," the elder replied, "but hardly shocking. Doma has collaborated openly with the Returners."

"More importantly," said Edgar, and something dark glinted in his eyes as he turned them on Celes, "why would Doma trouble you when Maranda didn't?"

Maranda had not been allowed to trouble her. Two years later it still sat like an ember in the pit of her stomach, feeding on the emotions she swallowed. "Doma was poisoned," she said evenly, and watched the shock twitch through their expressions. "Kefka gave the order and probably dirtied his own hands, as well. The official word is likely disease or mass suicide."

There were no survivors, the commanding officer had whispered to her on the morning of her execution, meaning _the truth dies with you_. She knew better—Kefka wasn't one to murder in secret, and even soldiers sworn to silence would gossip—but she had been the truth's only hope of action. No one in power would care but Leo, and Leo would never believe without evidence that was already buried in mass graves, already diluted by the sea.

The color drained from the elder's face, then came back red. "Barbaric," he spat. "If true."

Already Celes was reaching to unfasten her hair clip, the one item it hadn't occurred to her jailers to confiscate. Her hair fell forward over her ears as she unfolded the one scrap of evidence she'd saved, a note from the lab technician who noticed the missing vials after Kefka stopped by, out of his way, before setting sail to Doma. She passed it around the circle, starting with the elder and ending with Edgar.

"We're only fooling ourselves," said Arvis, "if we believe the Empire would do any less to us."

Edgar folded the note carefully and pressed it back into her hand. "Hence your defection?"

Celes nodded, measuring her breaths, trying to detach herself from a moment still ringing in her bones. "They caught me attaching a warning to a carrier pigeon." The bird had fluttered through every restless dream in her cell, always just out f reach, and she needed to collect herself against saying as much. When she felt in control again, she added, flatly, "We're wasting time. If we act now, we'll have half a chance to prepare."

All eyes fell on the elder, who moved to gaze out the window at the falling snow. The angle of the firelight made deep grooves of the lines on his face. "Why should they respect our neutrality," he said, "if they have no respect for the rules of war?" His hand curled over the coat on the back of his chair. When he turned again toward the door, he already had one arm through a sleeve. "We're wasting time."

 

* * *

Rock formations created a maze in the valley. Even the narrowest points were too wide, and even the highest protrusions were too low; Magitek armor would navigate the paths with little difficulty. The Imperial scouts sent to investigate the esper had returned with detailed enough intelligence to dash any hope that the troops could be tricked down blind alleys by hastily erected barriers, and the city guard hadn't proven a match for two armor units, let alone the sizable force sent to South Figaro.

So a fair fight was out of the question.

Celes had the guard, a sturdy cart, a hasty wooden construction beneath a tarp, and the incomplete trust of Narshe's citizens, which she supposed was more than she deserved. Even most of those who refused to evacuate had agreed to make their stands in the mines rather than the streets.

The snowfield bustled around her with activity both military and civilian. Snowflakes whirled thicker than the conversations in the air; with any luck fresh snow would bury the footprints and make the decoy appear a long-settled piece of the summit.

"Are you certain about this?" asked the captain of the guard, with an especially leery glance at the frozen esper Sabin was wheeling past.

"How many Imperial armies have you led?" Celes replied. Back home, the factory belched more smoke than strange residues, new armor appeared infrequently, and Magitek infusions were rationed among the most promising soldiers. Not even Kefka could ignore priorities entirely. "The Empire is coming for your esper, and only for your esper. Remove it, and we remove the Empire's interest in Narshe."

More grumpiness than mistrust now darkened the elder's tone. "Our coal deposits are unmatched the world over."

Celes shook her head. "They have little dependence on coal now. They also have little experience with the cold and no need for a base here."

Unappeased, the elder said, "You're asking for a tremendous show of faith on our part, and I still question what you've done to deserve it."

"I know."

For the first time, he seemed pleased by one of her responses; perhaps in her eyes he saw Maranda burning and birds forever out of reach. Behind them, the team in charge of the decoy announced its task complete.

A tap on Celes's shoulder drew her attention and her sword. "Easy," said Edgar, raising his hands. "Just delivering your map." As she accepted it, he added, "I've sent a bird to Figaro. They'll be waiting for us." Then, in a lower voice: "I trust you, and more than that, I trust that you won't be party to another atrocity."

After a moment's hesitation, she shook his proffered hand, then disengaged when he tried to kiss the back of hers.

In the pause that followed, one of Narshe's defenders rounded the southern pass, kicking up snowdrifts. "We've spotted them," he panted. The frost on his fur hood melted and refroze under his breath. "They'll reach the city within the hour."

Edgar let out a slow sigh, white breath lingering in the air, before turning back to Celes with an upward quirk to his mouth. "I suppose we'd better hurry, then. Sabin and I will be waiting."

As the cart rattled off, she raised her sword to draw the eyes of the assembled guards and citizens to her. "Positions," she barked.

The civilians retreated into the mines, winding their way through the hidden passages too narrow to admit vehicles. After a final sweep, the main guard melted with her behind the snowbanks above the valley. "On my signal," she called to the soldiers stationed in the cliffs, and then there was only the tension, the waiting, the dancing snow.

The clunking and rumbling of the Magitek armor announced their arrival long before they emerged from the shadows of the streets. From the sound of it they weren't destroying much of the city as they marched, and Celes felt a flash of relief; Kefka's mind had wrapped itself tightly enough around the idea of the esper to leave little space for the temptation of wanton violence.

As the first of the foot soldiers entered the valley, she strained to hear their conversation over the wind. By the time Kefka arrived, flanked by armor units and preceded by a lancer on the back of venomous, lab-engineered beast, most arms were pointing toward the snow-covered tarp on the summit.

"If they were _really_ cooperating," Kefka said disdainfully, catching the shape of the rocks just right to project his voice through the field, "they would have wrapped it up in with a bow and left it on the right side of this wretched ditch." Helmeted heads nodded in agreement until Kefka stamped his boot, scattering fresh snow. "What are you idiots waiting for? Bring me that esper!"

Celes raised her sword, slowly pooling her magic into an icicle at its tip. Most of the foot soldiers crossed the valley with the pair of armor units, visibly annoyed but not stymied by the twisting paths between the rock formations, and trudged through the new-fallen drifts toward the tarp. The armor remained at the base of the cliffs; these must not have models benefiting from the new hydraulics system. Only a handful of troops and their combat dogs remained behind with Kefka, along with the rider and his beast, which drooled steaming venom into the snow.

The sound of combat knives on ropes carried on the wind. When the tarp fell away, revealing barrels and scrap iron lashed together, a stunned silence fell until one of the soldiers shouted, "It's a fake!"

Celes didn't wait for further reactions before shooting her ice bolt in an arc across the sky. It shattered as the first of explosives went off.

As maneuverable as Magitek armor was, it couldn't navigate tight turns quickly enough to outrun an avalanche. The troops who had reached the summit found themselves safe but stranded, while the slower and less fortunate vanished under the white tide. Celes felt a pang for them; not long ago, they had been her men.

The avalanche ended almost as abruptly as it had begun, leaving the valley buried.

On the southern end, just clear of the disaster, Kefka flew into a flailing rage. "Dig yourselves out and find it, you idiots! I want every last miserable creature here killed for this!" Details of the latter demand were cut short when Celes whistled and surged forward with the guard against the remnants of the Imperial force.

As she fashioned another wave of ice magic, this time a thick spear of an icicle, she allowed herself the fleeting fantasy of Gestahl opening a box to find Kefka's head inside, the lab technician's note stuffed into his mouth. She rose up and took aim at his back.

The rider blocked her shot. Kefka's face twisted from shock to anger to sadistic glee as he spun, scattering snowflakes from his cape, and said, "Why, if it isn't our Celes! How nice of you to save me the trouble of hunting you down." By the final words he was nearly growling. Celes scarcely managed to brandish her sword and intercept the fire magic that leapt toward her.

Even in the white chaos of the battle, she could make out the charms and bangles that protected Kefka from the brunt of magical attacks. He was already preparing another spell. He was faster; he had always been faster; his magic had broken him and given him this in return.

So when Celes drew upon the power she'd absorbed, she aimed it not at Kefka but at the beast's slave crown. The lancer crashed to the ground as his mount reared wildly.

"Forgot how to aim, hmm?" Kefka cackled and twirled a halo of flame above his finger. "Let me show you—"

The threat ended in a shriek as the beast lunged for Kefka's throat. He fell with it into the snow now packed over the valley, firing half-formed spells in all directions.

"Ten minutes!" Celes caught the eyes of the captain of the guard and found the grim determination of one who intended to interpret that not as the amount of time he needed to occupy the enemy before retreating, but as how long he and his men had to wipe out the opposition. There no time to argue; the greatest threat remaining was Kefka, and she expected him to teleport away to safety as soon as he killed the beast.

Only one Imperial soldier attempted to block her rush toward the mines. He hesitated—from recognition, fear, reluctance, or some of each—and fell to one of the guards before Celes had committed to raising her sword against him. She ran without looking back.

* * *

 

Even with a map, the maze of the mines challenged her. And the hidden passages had obviously been designed for human traffic only; when Celes found Edgar and Sabin waiting for her at what appeared to be a dead end, the latter showed every sign of having carried the cart over rubble and uneven ground. Without him, they would have been forced to risk transporting the esper through the streets and drawing premature attention.

"The guard should have things under control," she said, and found that she didn't want to say anything further about it. "We should move quickly. Kefka's probably already back in South Figaro."

"How?" Edgar asked. "That's a good way even by chocobo." He rubbed awkwardly at his shoulder, which he had probably strained helping with the cart. The wheels in particular showed signs of hasty re-engineering.

Celes gathered a simple healing spell in her palm and replied, "Magic." She watched his eyes widen, then narrow again as she pushed the white light into his muscles. Rolling his shoulder experimentally, he glanced between her and the frozen esper in the cart, then shrugged.

"Either way," said Sabin, "we'd better hurry and catch up with everyone."

"Allow me." Edgar ran his fingertips over the wall, then gripped and twisted an inconspicuous stone. The tunnel rumbled behind him, letting in the daylight, as he winked at her. "One of my dear friends makes a living at this sort of thing. It's too bad he's not here now; I'm sure he'd rather be devoting himself to your protection than working on whatever mission Banon has him on."

She opened her mouth to say that she was certain she didn't need it, but not very long ago she had been bound for execution. Setting her chin, she marched out into the snow, cart creaking behind her.

* * *

 

The clouds thinned as they worked their way down, giving the sun direct access to the frozen esper. Celes had to begin freezing the air around it even before they reached the field. At Sabin and Edgar's insistence, she boarded the cart, squeezing in against the block of ice. Constant spell-casting was wearying enough without simultaneously navigating the terrain.

Narshe's civilians and their military escort were distant gray specs at the edge of the desert. Celes twisted around to keep watch behind over Sabin's shoulder, in case Kefka proved less of a coward than she expected or the Imperial soldiers overwhelmed the guard. Sabin and Edgar spoke to each other in low voices about events she had no context for, but she recognized the body language of two people meeting again after an estrangement for which they shared accountability; she had the same conversation, with different words, each year when she met Cid on his birthday.

Feeling guilty for eavesdropping, she turned more of her attention to keeping the esper cold and tried to shake the sensation that its eyes moved whenever the cart was especially jostled. The rising heat and constant drain on her magic kept her suspended just above solid reality.

In the near distance appeared a handful of Imperial soldiers, helmets glinting in the sun. Blinking didn't disperse them; better, then, to assume them real. They were so few that the Narshe guard might well have won the fight while these escaped in the confusion. Celes waited a moment to see whether they intended to take the fork leading to South Figaro, but they opted instead to give chase. Nothing swayed the decisions of the rank-and-file quite like the dread of displeasing Kefka.

"Incoming," she said, trying to keep the exhaustion out of her voice. Stray frost scattered from her fingertip as she pointed.

Edgar halted and turned. "I'll catch up," he said, drawing the crossbow slung over his shoulder. At least, it looked like it had begun as a crossbow before heavy modifications were made to the firing mechanism. When he fired so many quarrels at once that she lost count, Celes ceased worrying about him.

As the clatter of crossbow volleys faded with distance, Sabin asked, "You doing okay?"

Her head swam and her palms felt as if she'd scraped them raw. Each minute promised that the esper would shatter the thinning ice and slash her throat with its claws. "I'll hold up. How much farther?"

"Not _too_ far," he replied, in the tone of one of who knew he was abusing the modifier. For a delirious moment Celes thought he was melting like the ice, until she connected the droplets on his skin to sweat. Edgar said something, as well; she wondered when he had returned, how long he had been gone.

For a length of time that dilated and collapsed like an erratically beating heart, she was aware of nothing but the throbbing pain in her hands and a spreading sense of hollowness as she sucked dry reservoirs of magic that she hadn't known were inside her. When human contact shook her daze away, she was surprised that she was still solid.

Something like Edgar's voice said, "We've got it from here."

Stopping the magic sent a frigid snap through Celes that left her reeling. Flashes of her environment seeped through to her: stone walls, dry air, heat, supporting hands that she didn't want but couldn't remain upright without, something soft taking up most of her awareness—

The darkness shook.

She woke abruptly, uncertain if she'd passed out for minutes or days. The excited whispering around her and the nagging emptiness inside suggested that it had been closer to the former. A glance was not enough to tell her whether she was in an inn or an infirmary.

"I'm all right," she lied to the solicitous nurse who reached her first. She could stand, at least, without too much support from the furniture. "Where's the esper?"

Eventually they stopped trying to coax her back down and sent for Edgar. He met her just outside the door, where she was decidedly not teetering.

When she refused his arm, he sighed melodramatically before leading her down the hall. "We put the esper in the refrigeration machine in the basement. The chancellor is still finding places to put the refugees from Narshe; I hope you're right about the Empire's intentions for the city."

"I drafted those intentions." Her hand patted restlessly at her side, searching for the sword that was taken from her while she slept, not because she felt threatened but because she wanted to feel trusted. Celes settled for reminding herself that an unarmed king now openly hostile to the Empire was leading her through restricted areas of his castle.

"Sabin's having a look around," said Edgar, though she hadn't asked aloud. "He hasn't been home in a while. Home may be parked near Kohlingen now, but it's what's inside that counts."

They descended steep stairs to a dark room that hummed with machinery and was hotter than befitted a basement. When the lights came on, they glinted from copper tubes curving around and through a black box a head taller than Celes and twice as wide. At Edgar's invitation, she turned a handle on the front and pulled open a door heavy enough to tax her tired muscles.

Nestled among food and frost, taking up most of the interior, was the esper. What had been several thick feet of ice above its head had melted to a slab no thicker than a hand, and jewel-toned feathers poked through even thinner patches, but its eyes remained as still and glassy as marbles. Celes shivered, not from the cold, and closed the door.

"Quite a piece of work, isn't it?" Edgar patted the side of the machine almost affectionately. "It uses a compression and expansion cycle to create freezing air. Much more effective than water and saltpeter."

Vector now relied almost entirely on Magitek. Celes still remembered the day she had rattled the ice in her glass and realized that if the rumors were true, it came from the same beast whose magic flowed through her veins. Her stomach had been too twisted to finish the drink. Compared to this, the noise and heat of Figaro's machine were almost pleasant.

As she retreated to the relative coolness of the stairwell, she said, "As far as the Empire is concerned, we've stolen hundreds of Magitek armor units."

"It's true, then, isn't it? Gestahl means to drag us all into another War of the Magi."

She nodded, turning to ascend the steps. "We may already be too late to stop them. I have no doubt there are already plans to retaliate against Figaro."

"They'll have to catch us first." Edgar kept pace with her, with a cocky swagger that he couldn't have thought convincing. "They've already taken South Figaro. Everything else they could use as leverage is already safe inside these walls."

"That isn't good enough."

"Of course it isn't. I won't see Figaro reduced to an island in a ruined world." He reached ahead of her to open the door at the top of the stairs. "But we should have time to plan our next move without Imperial interference. I don't suppose you know—"

"Your highness!" A guard raced around the corner and skidded to a halt with a salute so vigorous that he knocked his helmet askew. "There's some kind of talking monster on the roof."


	4. Another World of Beasts

Mountains rose up between Terra and the rhythm that sought its echo inside her. When she tried to soar above them, the air thinned away and left her lungs aching. Instead she skimmed along the side of the range, over forests and fields and sand, until she found a canyon that cut through the peaks. Strange birds startled at her passing; despite everything, she wanted to stop and watch them, let them land on her fingers and peck seeds from her hands.

No time. Exhaustion nipped at her heels, waiting for her determination to run out. If nothing else, she would ensure one esper's safety.

An enormous structure of gray stone jutted from the sand ahead. Surely this was the prison where Ramuh had suffered, where so many suffered still. Terra tried not to think that the weak presence she sensed was her father's, because then she wouldn't be able to think at all.

Not that she was thinking well as it was. It began to occur to her that she had no plan.

The stone structure grew as she swooped down toward it, a soothing gray amid the glare of sun on golden sand. To her dismay, the esper's presence drew her not aside but directly toward the interior; perhaps the escape had already been thwarted. Dots of color (humans, and so many) spilled out of towers to gawk at her shining overhead.

Terra landed on the highest point, a narrow, hollow tower that buzzed as it sucked air inside, and puffed up her fur. The humans could not reach her here, and she was not yet too exhausted to rain fire on any who came too close.

None attacked. From her perch, Terra could see something like fear in their faces, but she knew better than to believe; humans could feign emotions for years before striking. But it was hard not to feel emboldened when they did nothing more menacing than point at her and whisper to one another, and perhaps she could let herself believe that the humans' power had waned since Ramuh's escape.

When they continued to stare like baby sylphs, Terra leaned forward, digging her claws into the stone for balance, and said, "Let them all go. _Now_."

This resulted in no one's release and a great deal of exciting babbling below. Setting her hair on end to appear larger, Terra leaned farther and spoke with the full force of her gut: "The espers you kidnapped. Let them go!"

The crowd parted for a human male who emerged from the shadow of a tower. Following him was a female with the pale coloring of a unicorn and something at once familiar and alien about her, wrapped in a distorted aura of magic; trying to discern details was like trying to read writing reflected in a mirror. For a wrenching moment Terra wondered if this was how other espers saw her.

They stared up at her, mouths slack, until the man said, "You're—" and then broke off into furtive conversation with the woman.

A shifting prism of emotions made Terra's hands shake. She clenched them tighter into the stone, scattering spalls. "Are you the human emperor?" she demanded.

The man appeared taken aback for a moment before shouting up to her, "I shudder to think any mutual acquaintance could mistake us. King Edgar of Figaro, at your service, miss..."

It was the expectation in his trailing tone that drew Terra to perch on a lower projection. She could still fly away, she reminded herself, at any moment. "Terra. If you're really at my service, let all the espers go."

Even from a distance she could read the confusion on his face, either real or skillfully acted. "I'm afraid there's only one esper here."

Fire sprang into her palms. Struggling to control herself, she shouted, "Did you kill them all? What have you done to them? Give them back!"

The crowd's voices swelled until the king raised his hand. The pale-haired woman said something to him, too quietly for Terra to catch, and walked back the way she'd come, white cape billowing behind her. Part of Terra wanted to swoop down after her, catch her by the arms, and tell her she couldn't leave until she made sense.

"The Gestahlian Empire has your espers," Edgar said, and Terra descended farther to ensure that she heard every syllable. He winced as her hands left scorch marks on the stones. "Figaro is at war with it—officially, as of this week." He smiled in a way that she was unwilling to find charming. "I believe we're on the same side."

Terra showed him her teeth. Some of the humans brandished weapons like twisted versions of centaurs' bows, then lowered them again at a gesture from Edgar. She watched him warily, still holding flames at the ready, despite their drain on her already taxed resources. "Then why are you holding an esper captive here?"

"Not captive, exactly. I'd say we rescued it—him—her? I'm afraid this one's gender is less clear than yours."

Frowning, she let the fire go out and drifted lower. Even if she conceded that the humans did not present a united front, even if they laid down their arms before her, they remained human; their eyes were opaque to her, and she could not hear the rhythm of their hearts. "I can feel him beneath us," she said, letting a growl slide into her voice. "I don't trust you. Bring him to me."

"He isn't terribly portable," Edgar replied. "Allow me to take you to him."

Terra hesitated, eyes narrowed and palms bristling with stored magic. "You're trying to trick me."

"You have my word." When she didn't move, he held up his hands and said, "I'm unarmed. We have a common enemy in the Empire."

Ramuh had said the Empire could render an esper powerless, but even in her exhaustion, Terra felt strong enough to melt mortar and reduce stones to ash. And this, wherever it was, did not seem to be the Empire; only sand surrounded it, not the forests into which Ramuh reported having fled.

The crowd scattered backward as she floated down to be level with Edgar. He was taller up-close; Terra straightened her back and let flames dance between her fingers. "If you're lying," she told him, hoping he wouldn't see through her bluff, "I will leave nothing but smoke."

"That won't be necessary. And I would appreciate your not threatening my kingdom."

Something in his tone nearly made her apologize, but she reminded herself that he was human and concerned only for the welfare of his kind. She tried not to think about what her kind was as she nodded and let the flames wink out.

At Edgar's command the humans back farther away, some with clear reluctance. Terra followed him, claws clicking against the stone floor, through broad doorways and down below the level of windows. The lights here burned yellow and strange under glass shells. When Terra stopped to examine one, Edgar said, "They're electric lights. We harness the desert winds for electricity and pass a current through a carbon filament." Then, as she extended her hand: "They're very hot."

Her fingertips hovered just above the glass, basking in the heat. She tapped gently with a claw, just to hear the sound, then resumed walking.

They went deeper, into a warmer warm where the hum of machinery nearly drowned out the hum of magic. "This is a refrigeration machine," said Edgar of the massive black box taking up most of the room, and Terra's ears folded down in anticipation of more incomprehensible terminology. He must have noticed, as he continued after a pause, "I can tell you how it works later, if you're interested. What matters is that we found this esper frozen solid in the Narshe mines, so we thought it would be wisest to keep things that way. This one might be less reasonable than you, after all."

Terra set her mouth in a line and did not respond.

"Right," said Edgar. "I'll get the door."

The front of the box swung ponderously open, stealing Terra's breath in its arc. Inside was a beautiful winged esper, the colors of its feathers and scales vibrant despite the strange lighting and thick ice encasing them. His eyes glittered like gems, lovely but lifeless.

Terra had never seen his like before. Bracing herself, she stepped forward almost into the box, rested her palms on the ice, and sought his name. Her palms burned from the cold.

 _Valigarmanda._ One of the old ones. She turned, breathing heavily, and walked to the stairwell without looking back.

She waited until she heard the door close before saying, "I believe you. Valigarmanda—this esper—I know nothing about him, except that he didn't join us in the new world. Some of the ones who didn't were missing or trapped, but some of them were..."

As she searched for the right word, Edgar suggested, "Wild?"

"No. There's nothing wrong with wild." Wild was the forest that let her feel at home, the shy songbirds, the animals that trusted her and no one else. "Some of them didn't know how to do anything but fight, so they didn't want to stop."

A touch registered on her shoulder, and Terra nearly attacked before realizing that Edgar probably meant to be friendly. Some espers had refused peace; was it impossible that some humans, however few, had refused greed and the endless lust for power? Terra angled her head to stare into his eyes, uncertain whether she meant to challenge, uncertain how humans understood anything when they had no magic singing between them.

"I believe we got off on the wrong foot," said Edgar. "May I welcome you as an ally against the Empire?"

Terra searched for some hint that he meant to ambush her at the first sign of trust, but she didn't know how humans gave themselves away when they lied. Instead she raked through everything he'd said to her, looking for mismatches with reality. At the very least, he seemed to have told the truth about his location and how Valigarmanda came to be in his custody.

"You may," she replied, and did not miss the relief in Edgar's posture. It was strange to think that she might truly have frightened him. "I'm sorry I threatened you."

He waved dismissively. "Threaten me all you like; it's Figaro I won't hear menaced."

This seemed fair enough. Terra paused a moment to collect her thoughts, then asked, "Where is the woman who was with you?"

Edgar blinked. "Celes? She's... resting."

 _Resting._ The pause roused curiosity, but curiosity was distracted by the suggestion of pillows and soft covers. Already she had asked too much of her magic without giving it time to recover, and her last night at home had been sleepless. That home was no longer hers.

It did no good to dwell on that now. Instead she asked, fumbling for the right words, "Is she—Celes, she's human?"

"Popular opinion was divided after Maranda," he replied, with a wryness that made no sense to her, "but I believe so, yes."

Frowning, Terra started to ask for an explanation when heavy footsteps resounded from the stairs. Her fur stood up again. "Are you okay, Edgar?" boomed what was presumably the voice of the one stomping. "I just heard—oh. Hi."

A man with Edgar's coloring and Minotaur's physique managed to fill more of the space in the room than he physically inhabited. He stooped to Terra's eye level and said, "So you're the esper? You don't look anything like the other one." Before she had decided what to make of him, he extended a hand the size of a rabbit. "Sorry, that was rude. I'm Sabin, Edgar's brother."

"I'm Terra." Clearly he expected their palms to touch, but he had no magic to mingle with hers. Terra hesitated before setting her hand to his, then felt her eyes widen in alarm as he gripped her hand and shook it.

Laughing, he let go. "Little jumpy, huh? Has my big brother already tried something with you?"

Edgar, for the first time since Terra had met him, seemed flustered. "She wanted to see the esper we rescued from Narshe."

"C'mon, Edgar, this isn't the first time I've walked in on you in the basement." Sabin's let out a hearty guffaw as he clapped his frowning brother on the back. "Just teasing. Walking around this place sure has brought back a lot of memories."

Mollified, Edgar gestured toward the staircase. "And there's much more of the castle to see. Would you care for a tour, Terra?"

Weariness and curiosity battled for priority. "Well..."

"Let me show you around," said Sabin. "He'll try to tell you how everything works, if he hasn't already." With an amiable grin he added, "You don't have to worry about that with me. I have no idea how any of this works."

The laugh that escaped her settled the matter. It had been too long since Terra laughed freely.

* * *

 

Sabin led her up and down staircases and through decorated halls, past throngs of humans who regarded them with a stiff, nervous politeness. Terra apologized until he told her not to worry.

"We don't hold grudges around here," he said when they came to the top of the tower he claimed had the best view of the desert. The sand looked different, more vibrant and varied, when Terra wasn't swooping over it. "You look at those dunes and think they've been like that forever, but the wind is always changing them. Sooner or later, you learn how to stop fighting that."

For a moment his voice sounded the way the oldest espers' did when they spoke of the War of the Magi, low and distant, less mournful than nostalgic. In the next moment he grinned and said, "Ever seen a chocobo?"

Chocobos turned out to be birds with plumage the color of daffodils and far larger than any bird that had ever eaten from Terra's hand. Sabin hailed a human riding one (perhaps one of the those she had yelled at on the roof; humans were so difficult to tell apart) and invited Terra to pet it. When she reached out to stroke its feathers, it _wark_ ed and gave her an affectionate headbutt. She wrapped her arms around its neck, laughing.

"Figaro has the finest mounted regiment the world over," said the man how had been riding. He offered Terra a handful of feed, which the chocobo pecked eagerly from her palm. "They have chocobos where you're from?"

Terra shook her head. "We only have small birds. And Quetzalcoatl looks a little like one, sometimes." She seldom saw Quetzalcoatl; he emerged from his black forest only during storms, to split the sky with grief for his lost child.

"Where are you from, anyway?" asked Sabin.

Biting her lip, she let the chocobo finish eating before she brushed her hand off on its feathers. "I think I need to sleep now."

To her relief, he didn't press the issue. "Yeah, it's been a long day. We're a little short on guest space with everyone here from Narshe, so you can have the room they gave me in the east tower."

She frowned. "But where will you sleep?"

"I'll tell Edgar to roll over."

She let him lead (east was difficult to discern when the sun didn't move right) and delayed his leaving with questions about how to put out the glowing glass on the wall and what to do with the ceramic pot under the bed. The room lay at the foot of a stairway leading to the top of the tower; the proximity of the sky comforted her. When she eased under the blankets, an unexpected feather made her sneeze.

"Just yell if you need anything," Sabin said. "There should be plenty of people on patrol tonight." As he turned to leave, he paused and added, "I'm not real clear on everything that's going on right now, but you can trust my brother. You can take my word on that."

"Thank you." Feeling foolish, Terra dropped her voice to ask, "Can you stay here until I fall asleep?"

He smiled and settled into the room's only chair.

Terra dreamt of espers with pale yellow feathers that turned to razors when she touched them. When she woke, panting, she was alone. Moonlight silvered the top of the stairwell.

She didn't need anything, she decided, or at least not anything that she could expect someone else to give her. Feeling less empty after her nap, she ascended the steps, floating high enough to avoid the noise of her claws against the stone, and emerged under the night sky. The stars burned bright and breath-taking in strange, still patterns. The moon shone solid, unbroken by Camazotz's shadow.

A low gasp made her ears twitch. When Terra turned, she saw the pale woman standing atop one of the central towers, staring at her.

Terra contained her glow as much as she could in the quick flight over. "Don't go," she whispered, uncertain how many people were on patrol and how keen their hearing might be. "You're Celes, aren't you?"

The woman regarded her inscrutably a moment before nodding. The cool wind tugged at her cloak, giving Terra a glimpse of the sword at her side. "And you're the esper," she replied. "Terra."

This close, Terra could almost hear the strange, dampened magic inside Celes, like birdsong at the edge of earshot. Her hand extended with a shiver that had little to do with the chill in the air. "What are you?"

Celes drew back a step. "Go back to sleep. Now isn't the time."

"Are you like me? Edgar said that you're human, but something in you isn't." Terra's voice began to rise out of whispers. "Please, I have to know—"

"You don't." Celes's face was less expressive than Edgar's or Sabin's; if it weren't for the slight tremor in her voice, she might have appeared entirely without emotion, like the Mist Dragon. "I used to be part of the Empire," she added, as if this explained anything.

Terra padded forward. "Did you escape?"

"It's more complicated than that." Lips pressed into a line, Celes turned to stare out over the moon-blue sand. "Now isn't the time."

Frowning, Terra moved nearer and reached for Celes's hand. This earned her a sidelong glance and, after a stiff moment, half a shrug and a handshake.

The first jolt of contact pushed every subtle edge into stark relief. "Mother?" Terra whispered, but she knew better even before the word left her tongue; the identity was patchy and hollow, a few clumsy measures of music looped to seem longer. Her mother-who-was-not, a lie twice over. The slight chill of Celes's hand went to Terra's heart like an icicle.

Terra shoved, staggered, anything to get away. Her body shone frantically, like a dying star. "You're not her," came out as a growl. "You took everything but her. You cut out her heart and crawled inside!"

Celes's hands shook until she steadied them against the hilt of her sword. "This is what the Empire does with espers. It uses them to create weapons and people like me." Contempt spilled into her tone, coating most heavily her own pronouns. "And I didn't know. Even until now I had only rumors."

Only when her voice cracked did Terra realize that she had begun to cry. "You're monsters! You're all monsters!" Fire throbbed against the insides of her palms. "I thought you were like me!"

For a long moment Celes was silent, and the only sound was Terra choking back sobs. "I'm sorry," Celes said at last, softly. "I've turned my back on the Empire. It has no more compassion for humanity than it does for espers."

"A little too late." Terra snarled and let her hair burst out as a mane. "Did you help kill the ones who escaped with Ramuh?"

Celes's eyebrows arched with surprise that was either genuine or well-acted. "I was never even told of an escape. But there was a time when I would have led such a mission without questioning it."

Edgar and Sabin had been kind, and they would be upset if Terra started a fight or left a piece of their castle in ruins. She breathed deep and reminded herself of this, trying not to think about the human in front of her who had ripped Shiva's magic away. _Magicite wrapped in skin_ , Ramuh had said, but she couldn't think about that, either, not if she wanted to keep her temper.

Heavy shoes clapped against the stone behind her. "Miss Terra," said a man whom, once she had turned, she recognized as the one with the chocobo, or at least someone wearing similar clothing. She made a hurried effort to wipe the tears from her face. "It won't be dawn for several hours yet. May I escort you back to your chamber?"

Although she couldn't imagine sleeping now, she nodded and thanked him. She pointedly didn't look back at Celes as she followed him down into the castle.

 

* * *

Edgar woke her the next morning from a sullen, shallow doze in the chair. "Was the bed not to your liking?" he asked lightly as she willed her hair smooth and stretched the stiffness out of her neck.

Terra shook her head. "I had trouble falling asleep again after I woke up."

"I heard about that, yes." Edgar perched on the edge of the adjacent desk and drummed his fingers against the top. "Whatever Celes may have done before, she's one of us now. If not for her, Vagi—Valga—the esper in our basement would be in the Empire's clutches."

The arm of the chair creaked under Terra's hand. "The esper whose magic she stole," she told a knothole on the desk, too focused on self-control to fuss about syntax, "I grew up believing she was my mother."

"I'm sorry," said Edgar, though it hadn't been his fault. He fell quiet a moment. "My mother passed away shortly after Sabin and I were born."

This was nothing alike, unless someone had then torn off his mother's face and worn it as a mask, but he was human and didn't understand. He couldn't be expected to understand. Terra ached for the company of an esper, even one who despised her for what she was.

When she didn't respond beyond a half-nod, Edgar asked, "Is she one of the espers you came here to rescue?"

Clasping her hands gave Terra something to focus on. "Yes. I don't even know if she's still alive."

"No sense wasting time, then." He patted her shoulder gently and squeezed it once, and even if he didn't understand, he was company. A handkerchief fell softly over her hands. "And I can't bear to see a beautiful woman in tears. Shall we have breakfast and discuss our plan?"

She had no idea what to do with the handkerchief after wiping her eyes, so she pinched it awkwardly between her claws as she followed Edgar up and down another pattern of stairs and halls. This one ended in a room with a square table and a strong aroma of fried meat. At the far end, Celes hunched over assorted papers, pen in hand, while a shirtless Sabin leaned back with a cup of tea.

"...don't get out much with ascetic training," he finished, then turned to wave. "Morning, Terra."

Celes's gaze flickered upward only a moment before she went back to her papers.

"What would the priestess say if she caught you tipping your chair back like that?" lilted Edgar, in a transparent attempt to smooth over the awkwardness. As the front legs of the chair knocked against the floor, he added, "I apologize for the small space; Narshe is in the dining room. I'll get the bell."

Terra was sick of crying, so she set her chin and took a seat that kept Sabin as a buffer between her and the horrible broken echo of Shiva. His forehead wrinkled with concern, which she dismissed with a shake of her head. If he and Edgar thought Celes's help was essential, Terra wouldn't quarrel with them; what mattered was freeing the espers from the Empire. But when she tried to swallow her mistrust and resentment, it stuck in her throat.

There came a bright metallic chime, followed the sound of ceramic plates clinking together in another room. Edgar sat down opposite her.

"Breakfast is coming," he announced. "In the meantime, we have planning to do. We're agreed that our first priority is to disrupt Magitek operations and free the captured espers."

Celes's pen stopped scratching. "Leave the infiltration of Vector to me."

"I had hoped to. I suppose the greater challenge will be arriving at Vector in the first place."

Sabin set his teacup down. "Huh. Isn't there a big port city down there?"

"Albrook," Celes replied. "But the harbors have been closed to any but Imperial ships since the decision was made to invade other continents."

Edgar steepled his fingers. "They control the sea, but what about the sky?"

Terra took a moment to understand why his eyes had focused expectantly on her. When she opened her mouth to explain that she couldn't carry anyone over so much water, unchecked magic or no, footsteps and the light clinking of ceramic interrupted her.

More humans had arrived carrying plates laden with sizzling meat, dark bread, and large eggs tucked into fancy cups. They spared her an extra glance but didn't gawk or treat her as dangerous, which drained some of the tension from Terra's shoulders. Once her plate was in front of her, she watched Edgar as surreptitiously as she could as he cracked the large egg with his knife, then flicked back the top of the shell before dipping a spoon into the contents.

On her left, Sabin ignored all the utensils in favor of scooping up the meat with his bread. Terra gave up all hope of understanding foreign table manners.

As she struggled to open her egg as effortlessly as Edgar had opened his, Sabin said, "Hey, Terra, you can fly, right?"

"I couldn't carry anyone far," she replied. "Not over all that water."

As the conversation around her drifted into speculation as to how close a ship could come to Imperial shores without attracting Magitek-infused cannonballs, Terra nibbled a piece of bread and wondered if she'd even be able to navigate without an esper's signal to guide her. Soaring in this world intoxicated her. How could she focus for such a journey if she hadn't even been able to land properly in—

"Ramuh!" she blurted as the geyser of memory erupted in the back of her mind.

Edgar looked over with arched eyebrows. "Is this a 'what' or a 'who'?"

" _Ramuh_." When enlightenment failed to dawn, Terra explained, "He's an esper who escaped the Empire. I ran off and left him. He's probably upset..." She trailed off, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.

"He sounds like exactly the kind of help we could use." Edgar set down his egg-spoon. "Where is he?"

Terra closed her eyes and listened, blocking out the sleep-gentle hum of Valigarmanda and pretending that Celes was not nearby, pulsing with stolen magic. In the distance she could still hear him rumbling like a nascent storm. "I couldn't tell you," she replied, rising as she slid her eyes open, "but I can lead you to him."

Sabin's hand caught her arm. "After breakfast," he said. When he cracked his eggshell with his fingers, Terra relaxed and opened hers with a claw. Manners, it seemed, were what one made of them.

"We ought to meet with Banon about this before we act," said Edgar.

Terra licked egg from the underside of her claw and cocked her head. "Is that a 'what' or a 'who'?"

"He's the leader of the Returners." Before Terra could ask, Edgar added, "The ones fighting against the Empire."

"No." Ubiquitous humanity had already begun to overwhelm her; Terra couldn't imagine putting more of it between herself and a reunion with what seemed to be this world's only other free esper. If it was wrong to abandon her hosts, it would be no more wrong than having abandoned him. "I'm leaving now."

"After breakfast," Sabin said, and she hesitated only a moment before nodding.

Edgar locked eyes with her, then turned his attention to buttering his bread when she refused to blink. "The lady knows what she wants," he said with a soft sigh. "Well, I suppose Banon has his hands full enough with South Figaro. Might we leave an hour after breakfast so that I can explain this to the chancellor?"

* * *

 

Below her the chocobos blurred to yellow streaks—fast, but not nearly as fast as she could fly. Terra rolled to slow herself, scattering dusk-reddened clouds with her hair.

Edgar had waved her down for a consultation when she flew in the direction of the canyon she'd followed to Figaro. After some discussion, during which Celes did not address her directly, it was determined that she had almost certainly found Ramuh in a city called Zozo, and that people who could not fly through canyons needed to take a more circuitous route.

When she flew low again, to tell them that they were close now to rounding the tip of the mountains in their way, Sabin called her over. She eased back to match his chocobo's pace. "Do you get tired from flying?" he asked.

"A bit," she replied, because she didn't know how to explain how the gradual drain on her magic overlapped with giddiness and worry and the fire inside her stoked by every reminder that she now had half a plan.

He scooted closer to his bird's neck, freeing up space behind him. "Hop on! Just hang on to me and you'll get the hang of it in no time."

Lips pursed in concentration, Terra adjusted her speed with spiderweb delicacy. When the rhythm of the bird's strides matched her breaths, she grabbed Sabin's torso and let herself drift into place behind him. Feathers tickled her thighs.

"What do you think?" he called over his shoulder.

Terra took everything in for a moment—the bouncing motion, the slap of chocobo feet against grass, the smells of Sabin and the bird—and replied, "It's very... bumpy."

Sabin laughed and snapped the reins.

The sky darkened beneath twilight and storm clouds as tall buildings appeared in the near distance. Terra sought Ramuh's influence in the first few drops of rain and felt instead a terrible, muffled keening. She used Sabin's shoulders to push off into flight, frantic, cursing herself for being so determined to block out Celes that she had missed the subtleties of Ramuh.

"What's wro—" was all she heard of Edgar's question before she shot skyward.

Last time Terra had been too overwhelmed to remain aware of her surroundings; now she weaved through buildings, gagged at the stench of wet garbage, winced at the steady cacophony of the streets. The tallest tower drew her upward in a tight spiral as she sought the right place to enter.

Glass exploded around her, either a different window or the same repaired, but she couldn't care while Ramuh's distress burned in her bones. She had probably ruined his carpet again.

At first she saw only shapes (no light here but her own, so she blazed like a star), stunned still until one of them shouted and charged her. The fire she threw at it lit the room long enough to show her half a dozen or more humans crowded inside, their faces and bodies hidden by gleaming armor. Ramuh had fallen somewhere past them, in pain.

And they felt _wrong_ , like subtler versions of Celes. By the time she understood the implication of this, lightning had already arced across the room to strike her chest.

She staggered backward, more surprised than injured; the jolt was little worse than Ixion's preferred way of indicating that he didn't want company. But the humans were many, and the glass crunching under the pads of her feet told her that she had nearly been forced out the window. She was probably bleeding again.

With a roar, she lashed out with flames that melted a volley of little icicles. The humans scattered. When Terra tried to unleash another wave, the back of her head began to buzz, and the well of her magic denied her as if someone had hammered a lid over it.

The humans' armor glowed faintly green. _They have ways of dampening us,_ Ramuh had said. When Terra dug for fire she found only smoke.

This time the lightning hurt.

If she fell backward she could escape through the window, but she couldn't remember how to fly. If she fell she could do nothing to save Ramuh. What did she expect to do for him like this?

When two of the humans approached her, cornering her against the storm and the fall, Terra bared her teeth and came at them with her claws. A cold wave crashed over her and left her soaked, shivering, too numb to think. Her senses flickered.

"...city's a goddamn esper nest. Grab 'em and..."

If she could find out what they were using against her, she could destroy it. She couldn't destroy anything if she couldn't think clearly.

Her arms left her control. The ground struck her again and again as she was dragged down a flight of stairs. Somewhere ahead, Ramuh was too weak to fight. The buzzing burned in her brain as if Bean Sidhe were screaming into her ear. Everything that didn't hurt had become too numb to move.

Her legs hurt. Her legs could move.

With a frantic kick Terra sent her captors tumbling with her down the stairs, out an already broken window, and after a stomach-twisting fall, to a crash-landing on a slippery roof. Blood trickled warm from her ears and nose, but she could feel herself again. The first soldier to find his balance went screaming over the edge with the momentum of a fireball that the rain could not begin to douse.

The others scattered, and Terra didn't care whether they fled to safety or fell to the streets. What mattered was that they could not constrain her, which meant that the source of this power lay with the soldiers who still had Ramuh. She leapt back to the building from which she had burst forth and clung to the wall like a gargoyle, her senses sharp and raw. Ramuh sank toward the street.

Hair standing on end, she suppressed a growl as she drifted down the wall. They would not disable her again; she would tear molten masonry from the building and hurl it at their heads before they knew which way to aim. She perched above the street-level exit, heart hammering in her chest at a rhythm that outpaced the rain, and waited.

The first soldier she felled. Before she even saw the next, she was doubled over, clutching her temples, smashing on her side against the uneven cobblestones. Ramuh cried out audibly as well as in her blood, and she felt the kick that silenced him echoed in her ribs. Perhaps she had been the one kicked.

Her vision shrank to pinpoints in crackling darkness, through which she saw only a boot headed for her face. It vanished in a flash of light.

A moment later, the shouting convinced her that the light had been real.

Armor clattered against the wet stones beside her, rigid with ice crystals. Around her resounded noises like Titan applauding, Valefor taking flight, Yojimbo playing darts with cockatrice feathers. The rain beat against her bruises. When she reached out for Ramuh, she found him fainter than mist and quieter than the hum of sylph wings. Her eyes were too heavy now to open. Her head was too heavy to raise.

Sets of drumming noises peeled away from the rain and quieted with distance—footsteps. For a sick moment Terra wasn't certain who had run away and who remained, but then Celes's voice barked, "Smash it!" and an assenting grunt sounded like Sabin's.

Wood and metal and materials Terra couldn't identify by sound cracked. In the next instant the screaming buzz in the back of her head fell silent. Her nerves came alive again, aching and raw. When she tried to push herself up, arms quaking, hands caught her by the shoulders and eased her upright. "I've got you," said Edgar against her ear, brushing her soaked hair from her face. "It's all right."

He said something else, but she had stopped listening with her ears: _(darkness and pain and frozen red light in the void and nothing but nothing wanting nothing)_

"Ramuh!" The word tore its way up her throat, and if she had been any stronger, Terra would have torn away from Edgar. As it was he held on to her as she whipped her head back and forth, as much to deny as to seek. She was empty—she could do nothing—

Ramuh lay broken out of her reach, head in Celes's lap. A red glow flickered inside his chest in time with his coughs. His hand grasped Celes's arm as if he had poured all his remaining strength into it as he muttered, "Shiva?" Light crackled under his increasingly translucent skin. "Sister?"

"Don't you dare," Terra growled. Edgar's hands restrained her, though she couldn't have lunged far had she been free. "You monster, leave him alone!"

Celes said nothing as she spread her hands over Ramuh's chest and poured healing magic into him. He made sounds of protests, as if she were trying to rouse him from a good nap, as his flesh grew dark and solid again, swallowing up the crimson light inside him.

Terra's hair fell limp around her. As his song strengthened and stabilized, she looked away, face burning despite the chill of the rain. Sabin caught her eye from where he stood watch and gave her an encouraging smile. When Edgar let go of her shoulders and pressed a vial of something eye-wateringly pungent to her lips, she hesitated only a moment before swallowing. Warmth and strength flickered down her veins.

"I'm sorry," said Terra, too quietly to carry far over the storm. She pulled gently away from Edgar, then relented and let him support her when she began coughing. Together they approached Ramuh. When she was almost near enough to reach him, Ramuh's thunderhead-gray eyes opened, narrowed, and focused sharply on Celes. "Who are you?"

She answered the cobblestones past his head. "A former Imperial general."

"I asked who you are," said Ramuh, beard rising out of his way as he sat up, "not who you _were_."

"It's all right." Terra coughed again and had to endure another sip of the potion before she was able to finish. "Celes just saved your life. You can trust her." A gesture included Edgar and Sabin. "And these two. They're not... bad humans."

The noise of a scuffle came from her right. Terra twisted enough to watch Sabin fend off a decidedly bad-looking human with designs on his pouch.

Ramuh harrumphed his way to his feet, ignoring Edgar's hand. He angled his head back to scowl at the tower as if it had no business being so tall, then made scooping and weaving gestures at the rain until a thick, black cloud formed just above the ground. It undulated gently beneath his feet.

"Let's stop standing around attracting thieves, then," he said to the stares. "Come aboard."

* * *

 

Terra shook herself as dry as she could before perching on one of the remaining chairs; enough of Ramuh's furniture had been destroyed in the fight without her contributing to the mess. Sabin stacked the least salvageable pieces against the broken window as Ramuh finished his introductions and headed off alone to brew tea. Boiling water, Terra had begun to suspect, was how he took time to think.

He didn't say that the soldiers had come because of the pink light that blazed in and out of his window, but the timing damned her.

Settling on the floor by the table, Edgar poked and prodded a pile of broken parts, occasionally holding a piece up for Celes to examine. They spoke in low voices, using words that rewarded eavesdropping with confusion.

When Ramuh returned with the first two teacups, Terra's guilt grew restless. "It was Valigarmanda," she said, more defensively than she intended. "One of the old ones."

"I know who Valigarmanda is," he replied. "A thousand years ago, we battled together against Titan. This was before the gods restored our wills."

Edgar glanced up, broken piece in hand, and lowered a thick glass lens from his eye. "Your gods left him frozen under one of our cities."

"You built a city on top of him." Ramuh handed one teacup to Terra and the other to Sabin, then disappeared again into the kitchen. His voice carried: "You creatures always dig too deep. The gods bound things beneath the earth for a reason."

As Edgar returned to his investigation, Celes said, "The Empire's growing desperate for new sources of magic. Gestahl would pour all Vector's resources into tunnel armor if he thought he could find espers underground." She paused to accept tea. " He sent Magitek knights here on what must have been a rumor, when they might have turned the tide in Narshe."

"And they brought this." Edgar looked up again without removing his lens, giving him the look of an oddeye, and held up the cracked husk of a box that when whole might have spanned both his palms. "It's some sort of miniature phonograph. I couldn't hear anything even before Sabin smashed it, so the recording must affect only espers. I wouldn't be surprised if the Empire uses a network of these to keep its espers captive."

Terra bit her lip until blood welled up around the points of her teeth. "We need to get them out _now_ ," she blurted, interrupting a response from Ramuh.

"We still need a way to get to Vector, remember?" said Sabin. When Terra fidgeted, he wagged a finger at her. "Don't fly off."

Edgar set down the fragments of the phonograph to accept a cup of tea. Once Ramuh had passed the other cup to Celes, he said, "Terra told us that you escaped. How did you cross the sea?"

Ramuh's eyes shrank hard and dark into their sockets. "Do not ask this of me."

Celes frowned up at him. "We have no way of reaching the southern continent. Please—"

"I am a coward who left his own brother and sister behind," he said sharply, heading for the kitchen in a bluster of robes and beard. "Do not ask better of me."

"We're not asking you to return to Vector," Celes called after him, getting to her feet. "Just take us to the southern continent. Everything after that is on my head." Porcelain rattled in the other room to drown out the end of her sentence.

Sabin let out a low whistle. "What do you think happened to him in there?"

"You wouldn't understand," Terra replied, and was surprised when he appeared hurt. Celes strode past both of them to intercept Ramuh as he returned with his own tea.

Ramuh drew up in front of her with a scowl. "What do you expect to accomplish? Will the four of you defeat the entire Empire?"

Celes returned the look. "I was one of the Empire's generals. If anyone can infiltrate the facility, I can."

"You have no reason to believe that any of them are still alive enough to save."

"Some of them must be. The Empire is still producing Magitek."

When they continued to stare each other down, unblinking, Terra said, "If you won't help us, I'll fly there."

This draw Ramuh's attention. "Keep your head, child. Don't act again out of anger."

"I'm not angry." The emotions trembling through her blurred and bled together; she had nothing so distinct as anger. "I'll go alone if I have to."

"You wouldn't get past the sound system," Edgar said.

Terra kept her gaze on Ramuh. "I don't care. Everything that happened to you is _still_ happening to them."

Ramuh's long sigh electrified the air. He drained his tea and breathed a puff of steam before saying, "This tower can no longer serve as my sanctuary. I will take you with me when I leave, but only as far as the shore."

"Then the kingdom of Figaro is in your debt," said Edgar with full charm, holding out his hand. "If you need a new sanctuary, consider yourself a royal guest."

As Ramuh negotiated the strange human custom of touch without transfer, Sabin asked, "Are you going to take Terra with you?"

Terra's stood out around her as she whirled to face him. "What?"

"I mean, you glow. We could wrap you up in a cloak and gloves, and it wouldn't do any good. And those, you know—" he made a spinning motion with his finger that clarified nothing— "anti-esper records. It wouldn't be safe for you."

Her claws dug into the carpet. "I came here to save them."

"I know. But you getting caught isn't going to help."

"He's right," said Edgar, drawing her ire for himself. "Unless you have some magic that disguises you, and then we'd still have to worry about phonographs."

Ramuh's hand moved with surprising speed to catch her arm. "I know better than they do that there's no stopping you," he said, voice rich with resignation, "so I won't bother trying to reason with you on this point. For your own safety, I urge you to hide inside your humanity."

There was a thick silence until Sabin said, "Your what?"

Ramuh let go but remained at her side, waiting for an answer, so Terra turned her back on him to watch the rain spatter against his windows. Her hands curled into tight fists.

"Terra's is a unique heritage," he said at length. "If she were to allow herself, she could pass as human."

"No," burst from her mouth wrapped in a growl. The white of her teeth glinted from the window. "I can't. I _won't_."

No one spoke for a moment, but she had no doubt that they were staring. At any moment they would claim to understand and in the next breath prove that they didn't.

"You thought I was like you," said Celes, so quietly that Terra wasn't certain she'd meant to speak aloud.

Tightness began in Terra's chest and spread up her throat. "I'm not like anyone."

" _Terra_." Ramuh sounded so like the elder's scowling face that she spun around and nearly apologized. "You trust these humans enough to have brought them to me. Can you not extend the same trust to yourself?"

She had no words wide and deep enough to hold her distress, only hemorrhaging panic that even the humans must have sensed. Beyond the precipice the wind tore everything to pieces, and she stood on the brink alone. "I can't. You're asking me—I can't touch it without—it's _evil_."

Edgar tilted his head and asked, "Do you think I'm evil?"

Terra flinched. "No, but..."

When she couldn't find words to fill the clause, Sabin said, "What about me?" and elicited another denial.

Celes looked away without speaking, so Terra told her, "And neither are you."

Human, all of them, and they had still risked their lives to show her kindness. If humanity had something vicious at its core, it could at least be overcome. And what other option did she have? Terra coughed away the thickness in her throat, then closed her eyes and turned inward to listen.

It sang inside her still, the terrifying sense of beyond. When she tried to put a shape to it, it flitted deeper into her shadows. She struggled to sculpt it into something her father might have recognized: something at once beautiful, exotic, and treacherous, a snare woven of poisonous flowers. These efforts only garbled it further. For a moment, frustrated, she wondered what it would have been like to have a mother who loved and protected, who would never have betrayed her family.

"I can't," she choked. Her hands went to her temples as she shook her head. "I can't let it take me over. I can't be like _her_."

Ramuh's hand wrapped around her wrist, and he pulled her nearer to the windows and the blanketing sounds of the storm. His whisper carried the image of his furrowed brow. "What did they tell you?"

"They _told_ me Shiva was my mother." Terra breathed heavily as she blinked back tears. "I wouldn't have known the truth if I hadn't overheard Amarok—"

"Amarok distrusted your mother beyond all reason. Anything you heard from him on the matter was likely too twisted to be called truth."

Terra's hair sprang back as she looked up. Her whispers came out in sharp hisses: "She betrayed everyone! What could he possibly twist about that?"

"Your mother died to keep you inside the gate." Ramuh let the words hang like thunderheads before continuing, "I had been captured and rendered powerless, and I could only watch as your father was swept out, followed by your mother. With her final breath, before the soldiers killed her, she cried out to Maduin that you were safe."

To her horror, she couldn't stop imagining it. When Terra shut her eyes, she heard the screams clearer than memory, smelled the blood and felt the wind whipping, tearing, dragging everyone out. Felt her mother's hands, and then no hands at all. She forced her eyes open and struggled not to be sick on Ramuh's rug. "I didn't know," she dully. "That's not what they told me."

She should have known long ago. No matter what they told her, she had never felt herself being cradled with malice, no more than she had ever felt her parents' magicite shatter in the back of her mind. The humanity inside her did not seek to devour her. No monster dwelt in her dark.

Distantly she heard Ramuh hush away a hand that reached for her. She shook badly, but she needed to shake; how else could she rearrange the pieces inside her? Untwist, untie, uncover: under the screaming and the blood she was loved so fiercely that her heart clenched.

The hollow place inside Terra began to fill. If she tipped forward she would fall in, but she was no longer terrified of drowning.

Breaths steady, breaths steady, and she could always breathe no matter how deep she dived—

Her hair fell limp and heavy over shoulders no longer protected by fur. When Terra opened her eyes, she couldn't pull them away from the hundreds of lines crisscrossing her bald palm, which had turned the color of peach flesh. Her fingers ended under blunt, rounded nails.

"I'm like _Ramuh_ ," she said, patting her face with the hand that was not fascinating her.

Edgar cleared his throat. "I can't imagine anyone mistaking you."

White fabric interrupted her vision. "You need clothing," Celes said crisply, pulling her cape around Terra's torso. She sighed when Terra wriggled free to examine her absurd little feet.

As the cape made another pass, the sheen of the window caught Terra's eye. A short dash rewarded her with a dim reflection, too soft to hold her face, of outlines unmistakably her own and unmistakably strange. She was so small without the tufts of fur along her limbs. Even her hair was small. Dark blotches from her hip to her chest marked where she had fallen.

A muddled exhaustion washed over her. When she shook her head to clear it, her hair resumed obeying her will instead of gravity's, and the prickle of fur swept away the strange vulnerability of bare flesh.

"It's difficult to stay like that," she said, still watching herself in the glass. "I'll have to plan for it. And rest." Even if she couldn't sleep, she could burn away the dark imago of her mother and let a new one rise from its ashes.

Celes's cape fell over her shoulders again before Celes herself headed for the door, saying, "I'll keep watch for soldiers."

As Edgar thanked Ramuh for his hospitality and inquired into bedding arrangements, Terra slipped away after Celes, feet silent on the thick carpet. Sabin looked at her askance but seemed appeased when she smiled at him.

The air was colder on the balcony, which had mostly survived the fight. Lit faintly by the light coming through the windows, Celes braced her hands on the railing and leaned out as far as the roof shielded her from the rain. From below came the muffled ruckus of fisticuffs.

She glanced up, diverting the flow of her hair, then returned to watching the street.

"Thank you," said Terra. "Ramuh would have died without you."

Celes shrugged. "I chose not to be a monster before I met either of you."

The rainfall rose to a dull roar. Shivering, Terra pulled the cape tighter around herself and crept forward until she was close enough to be heard at a whisper. "I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have blamed you for what the Empire did to you."

"You can still blame me for what I've done." Celes bowed her head, letting her hair shield her face. "All I had were rumors, but I chose not to investigate them."

Shiva was not truly inside her, not the parts of Shiva that mattered. Terra took a deep breath and held it as she set her fingers on Celes's arm, which stiffened. Echoes and only echoes, and nothing beneath the hollow frost but Celes. Terra exhaled shakily before saying, "That doesn't matter now. What matters is what you're doing."

After a long stillness, Celes's hands released their white-knuckle grip on the railing. One alit hesitantly, feather-light, on the back of Terra's hand before Celes sidled out of reach. "You should rest."

"So should you."

"I won't be the one changing her form."

Terra frowned. "You can't stay out here all night."

Celes faced her this time, with a thin but apparently genuine smile. "We'll take shifts. Go to sleep, Terra."

Lacking a counter-argument, she traded good-nights and went back inside, still wrapped in the cape. She curled up in one of the chairs and fell asleep before Edgar and Sabin had finished rearranging cushions.

* * *

 

When she woke, the humans were all sleeping, arranged awkwardly on deconstructed furniture. Ramuh gestured for her to join him in his kitchen and rewarded her with tea.

They sipped in silence for several minutes until he said, "Tell me, Terra. Who is the elder now?"

It was always strange to realize that there had ever been another. "Asura. Why?"

"Good. She's sensible, and anyone strong enough to move your mountain will listen to her." Ramuh drank again, then stared somewhere past Terra's shoulder as he left the steam waft through his beard.

When the silence dragged on, she lowered her eyes and set down her teacup. "I'm sorry I drew the Empire here."

Ten heartbeats passed before Ramuh replied, "I was a fool to believe I could hide indefinitely. I would have been found eventually, and with no one to come to my aid."

Terra breathed steadily again. "You can go home soon," she said, looking up. He evaded her gaze. "I promise. When the others are free, we can move the mountain ourselves."

Ramuh sighed like a stiff breeze. "You have asked much of me, child. Do not ask me yet to consider returning."


	5. Devil's Lab

Recently Celes had done any number of things that she had sworn never even to attempt: raising her sword against her liege, conspiring with rebels, agreeing to return to the heart of the Empire on which she had turned her back. Other things she had simply never expected: befriending espers, owing her life to a foreign prince.

She needed an entirely new category for crossing the ocean on top of a thundercloud.

Ramuh's storm rolled around them, hiding them from the world below. The cloud crackled beneath her with pent thunder. Dampness seeped into her clothing where she sank into the dark wisps.

Up here the air was cold enough to purple extremities and so thin that her rapid breaths dizzied her. Peering down made her feel small and fragile, so Celes kept to the cloud's center, legs crossed, hair streaming behind her. The Imperial air force flew lower and was infinitely more solid.

Sabin, who treated gravity as a force to compete against, sat with his legs dangling over the front of the cloud and noted approaching landmarks. Beside him, Edgar scribbled notes and figures with a mixture of scientific intensity and boyish glee.

Terra perched near the back of the cloud, examining the clothing that had been hastily procured for her during a brief stop in Figaro. She seemed particularly fascinated by the shoes, which she held against her clawed feet to examine the difference in size. This was encouraging; persuading her that humans did not generally run about barefoot and mostly naked had taken a great deal of effort.

"We're almost to the shore," Edgar announced. "Vector should be nestled among those mountains."

Celes nodded, leaning forward far enough to confirm. "We should approach from the west. The roads to Tzen and Albrook are heavily traveled." Few took the road to Maranda now; she'd seen to that.

"I can't hear them," said Terra, with a tremor in the her voice that didn't sound entirely the fault of the wind. "Not even my father. We're so close, and I can't hear them at all."

Ramuh made a gruff noise and lowered the front of his staff, coaxing the cloud to descend. "There may be nothing left of them to save. The world owes you nothing for courage, child."

"They must be alive," Terra insisted. "You told me they won't let themselves be magicite in the Empire's hands."

Sabin looked back over his shoulder. "Magi-what?"

"Magicite," said Ramuh heavily, and paused so long that Celes wondered if he meant to continue, "is what remains of us when our bodies are destroyed. Only our powers remain, condensed into a crystal. During the War of the Magi, humans turned the remains of our fallen against us."

And they would do so again, if they knew how. Celes's stomach twisted around the memory of Ramuh's skin turning to glass against hers.

Wisps of cloud dispersed under Terra's clenched hands. "Magicite is the heart of your magic. It's _sacred_."

"Then let's hope the Empire hasn't discovered it yet," said Edgar, turning to face Terra. "If Gestahl so much as suspected—"

"Don't borrow trouble." Celes breathed easier now as the air grew thick. "I've never seen anything like a crystal in all the Imperial army." To Terra she added, softer, "They must be alive. We'll get them out."

Ramuh rumbled low in his chest as he steered the cloud. "You run a dangerous race. If the Empire discovers how much power is to be gained by killing us, or discovers that the seal on our world has been broken, this mission of yours will become worse than foolish."

Edgar frowned. "What seal on your world?"

"The one I broke." Terra curled up around her knees, addressing the cloud. "When I was a baby, humans attacked us, so we sealed the gate to keep them out. I opened it with my pendant."

"You opened it because your father's blood is in you," said Ramuh. "The pendant alone has no power." He twisted his staff horizontally and let the cloud sink toward the grass, which was near enough now that Celes could pick out splotches of wildflowers.

Sabin cocked his head. "So why didn't you close it behind you when you left?"

"I can't. There's no one alive now who can create another seal." Biting her lip, Terra raised her head to face him. "In our world, our powers are dampened. The gods do it to protect us. But if we came out into your world, we'd be strong enough to fight back against anything. As long as we're free, we don't need a seal."

The cloud crackled and darkened in time with Ramuh's harrumphing. "Strong enough to start a second War of the Magi, you mean, and the only thing worse than perpetual war would be our gods waking to end it."

"Yes," said Edgar, "let's avoid that." He swung his legs over the edge of the cloud to meet the earth as it rose up toward them.

Once everyone had disembarked, Ramuh dispersed the cloud with a wave of his staff. He regarded them in solemn silence.

Edgar bowed slightly. "Thank you again for your hospitality and aid. I'll write a letter of introduction for—"

"I will remain here," Ramuh interrupted, "but only until the next dawn. If your mission proves impossible, you will need me to fly you safely home."

"We won't fail." Terra's expression softened as she added, "Thank you."

As Edgar began a letter regardless, using his brother's back as a writing surface, Terra caught Ramuh's hand between both of hers and held it fiercely. A beat later his other hand joined the clasp. What passed between them was as deep and inscrutable as the midnight sea, but Celes had to look away to avoid feeling like an eavesdropper.

When their hands parted, Celes draped her hooded cloak over Terra, and Edgar presented his letter to Ramuh with a flourish. "In case you need to leave before we're able to return," he said. "Please don't endanger yourself on our account."

For a moment Ramuh was still and silent. When he at last accepted the letter, he tucked it away inside his robes and in its place withdrew three gleaming green stones, smaller than chocobo eggs and translucent enough to show red cores pulsing in their centers like little hearts. Celes's skin tingled in time with them.

"My friends and comrades," Ramuh said quietly, "fallen during our ill-fated escape. They died to ensure my freedom; I have no doubt that they would risk no less to see the others safe."

Celes didn't have to ask what it was. When she reached forward tentatively and rested her fingers atop one of the stones, magic flooded her senses, whispering to her how to steal voices, how to weaves webs of sleep and stillness, how to draw flames from the same place she drew frost. The knowledge left her the moment she drew her hand back.

A shaky breath carried her voice: "That was incredible."

Terra bit her lip. "That's their—that's all they are. We can't let them Empire have them."

"Then take care of them." Ramuh pressed all three stones into Terra's hands. She nodded and clutched them tight.

"We'll protect them," said Edgar. "You have my word."

"Protect yourselves, as well," Ramuh replied. When they bade him farewell, he cloaked himself in mist.

 

* * *

They walked along the edge of the road, ready to hide Terra in the sparse trees at the first sign of other travelers. The woods had been thicker once, before Celes led Magitek armor through them; she couldn't trust her senses now with fire and metal so sharp in her memory. When Sabin and Terra both affirmed that no one was nearby, Terra pushed her hood back and passed around the magicite.

"Cait Sith," Terra said as Celes's senses swam through a fluid world where mind and body and gravity were mutable. "The trickster. They say he used to send wild visions to anyone who complained about being bored. His old fiddle is still in the elder's house."

Perhaps an extra twist of madness would render Kefka either docile or too far gone to direct his attacks. Celes slid the stone into her pocket and felt it throb gently through the fabric. "I'll take this one."

Terra smiled warmly. "He'd like you, I think. He'd tease you."

When Edgar held the last shard, frowning, she told him, "That's Siren, the great songstress. Her magic was in her music. We still sing the songs she wrote, but the older ones say they're not the same without her voice."

Edgar rubbed his thumb over the red heart of the stone. "I'll admit I'm a little confused by this. I hear it—her, but I can't put my finger on what to do."

"You're never had trouble putting your finger on a woman before," said Sabin, giving his brother a friendly punch in the arm. He held up his own magicite, which Terra had named Kirin, the horned healer of the woods. "It's like chi, sort of. I think. I don't really get how it flows, but I can definitely feel it."

Sabin halted, drew a long breath, and cupped one palm loosely in the other. As he exhaled, he thrust his upper hand forward as a fist, trailing the soft glow of healing magic. Grinning, he waved his shining hand at Edgar. "See? Nothing to it."

After waving his hand fruitlessly, Edgar brought the magicite up to squint at it and said, "I'm sure it's very simple after you've had a decade of martial arts training."

Had Cid been present, he could have framed magic in the precise terms of engineering. Thinking about Cid only made everything harder. "You have to find it inside you," Celes explained, "and call it out."

Terra nodded, tapping her chest. "Just hold her and listen for the place where she echoes."

"Clear as mud," Edgar muttered. He pressed the stone to his ear as he picked up his walking pace.

By the time they drew near the walls of Vector, he had managed to put Sabin to sleep mid-stride and briefly silenced himself while aiming for a buzzing grasswyrm. This would have to be good enough; every moment that Terra remained in the open compounded their risk, and there would be no chance to practice inside the city.

"Stay calm and look impressed," Celes whispered as they concealed themselves in the trees. "We're visitors from Albrook here to see the glory of the Empire."

"What's Albrook?" Terra asked, and was hushed.

"It's time." Celes held out her hand until Terra reluctantly shrugged off the cloak and returned it. The garment had been meant for snow and mountains, not the perpetual summer of the south, and would likely draw some attention, though not as much as Celes's undisguised presence would. She pulled the hood low over her face and steeled herself against the muddling heat.

After a final glance for interlopers, Terra closed her eyes and curled her fingers around her pendant. Her fur smoothed and dimmed into flesh as her hair darkened and fell over her face and shoulders.

Naked and entirely at ease about it, Terra opened her eyes, examined her arms, and flexed her toes against the forest floor. Celes tried not to flush as she put herself in the way of Edgar's line of sight and handed Terra the bundle of clothing.

When Celes turned to check, Terra had undergarments dangling from her arms and a red skirt draped around her shoulders like a cape. "Let me help," she said dryly. Terra cooperated like a distracted cat.

Once her haired was tied back with a ribbon, Terra touched Celes's hand lightly before pulling away to twirl. Hair and fabric spun in colorful rings around her.

"Shoes," Celes called after her. Instead Terra walked on the balls of her feet, as if she hadn't quite figured out what her heels were for, to present herself to Edgar and Sabin.

Edgar looked her over with a winning grin. "That's an lovely look on you, my lady, but your charms would elevate even rags to high fashion."

Terra picked uncertainly at a button on her blouse. "It feels strange. Do I have to wear _all_ of—"

"Yes." Celes knelt and tapped Terra's ankle until Terra raised it and allowed a shoe to be slid on.

As she raised her other foot, Terra grumbled, "Sabin's not wearing this much."

Sabin threw back his head and guffawed. "So who's gonna explain—"

"Later." Celes dusted off her knees as she rose. "We need to hurry before Terra becomes exhausted."

* * *

 

Travelers liked to claim that Vector reached the nose before it reached the eyes, but this was less true since the shortage of raw materials for Magitek had slowed the operations of the factory. The walls came into sight nearly ten minutes before the smog of home reddened the sky and thickened the air. Terra coughed first, but Sabin was not far behind her.

"How can anyone live in this?" Terra asked, wrinkling her nose.

Edgar shrugged. "We humans can adapt to almost anything."

Growing up Celes had never doubted what she was told: that she lived in the of city of the future, where dreams took shape in steel, and that she had been chosen to help lead a reluctant, benighted world into the light of progress. When Cid brought her to his labs, he showed her only the clean white coats and scrubbed surfaces, the smiling patriots and electrical devices that were the envy of the world. She was eight before she learned that the research facility extended deep and wide underground, like a sewer. She was fourteen before she discovered how heavily he drank.

She wished, with a bone-deep ache, that she had said good-bye to him before she left for South Figaro.

Edgar played his role with an enthusiasm that might have been half-genuine, loudly pointing out the scale and intricate engineering of the city gate. The guards waved them through hastily to escape his efforts at conversation.

"It's structurally impressive," he clarified in a whisper once they were out of earshot, "but the design lacks agility and adaptability. And aesthetically it's a disaster."

"I'm sure Gestahl would be heartbroken to hear that," Celes said dryly. She raised her head to mitigate the hood's encroachment on her vision and scanned the late-afternoon streets, through which only thin crowds passed briskly. Vector's citizens preferred not to dally; even well-adapted lungs breathed easier in the filtered indoors.

Terra drew a sharp breath that triggered a cough. "There's so many of them!"

"There are more in the residential districts north of the palace," Celes replied. "This end of the city won't fill up until evening."

Eyes wide, Terra turned her head slowly, taking all the city in. Celes tried to imagine it through her eyes: buildings lashed together by steel girders, scores of people hastening precisely between them, walls high enough to obscure the mountains beyond the borders, the palace towering higher still and shadowing the entire eastern quarter, and nothing green but paint. Terra's weight shifted uneasily, as if neither of her feet wanted to be the one preventing her from flying away.

Edgar cleared his throat. "Figaro Castle has the largest population of any northern capital."

"This is nothing like Figaro," Terra replied. "Figaro doesn't steal the sky." She sniffed the air and coughed again, earning a helpful clap on the back from Sabin.

Even tourists did not dawdle so long in the streets. "We need to move before someone tries to escort us," Celes said, and resumed walking. The others fell in behind her.

The front entrance to the Magitek Research Facility would be well-guarded, but the back entrances that the scientists used were secured largely by their obscurity. She once watched Cid emerge from a blind alley at the foot of the palace steps, when she was still young enough to believe that the darkness around his eyes came only from working late.

Soldiers marched along the most direct route, so Celes cut west to detour around a pub. As they passed the entrance, Terra halted, cocked her head at the window, and crept nearer, rising up on the balls of her feet. Celes motioned for her to hurry but found herself doubling back when Terra pressed her hands to the glass and squinted.

"The longer we spend in the open," Celes began, but Terra shushed her. Through the measured clatter of the soldiers' march wove the strains of an uninspired waltz.

Edgar peered over her head. "It's the music, isn't it? You can't figure out where it's coming from."

Terra nodded vigorously, nearly smacking the underside of his chin. "And it sounds unnatural, somehow. I'm almost certain it isn't magic."

"It's technology," he replied, tapping the window to direct her attention. "A phonograph." When Terra stumbled backward into him, alarmed, Edgar laughed and added, "This one's just for music. The device the soldiers used against you played a very different recording."

Wrinkling her nose, Terra leaned against the window. "You trap music inside?"

"Not 'trap,' exactly; it's a series of grooves—"

"Don't get him started," said Sabin, patting their backs to move them along. Relieved, Celes led them behind the pub and in quick darts from alley to alley until they found a shadowed place to wait. By the time the drone of the soldiers passed, she had estimated a force high enough to alarm her, large enough to put down an uprising; perhaps Tzen had rebelled again.

Already Terra looked strained about the eyes. Celes forced herself to wait until she was certain no second wave of troops was coming, then led the group past a small café to an alley almost blocked by crates. They entered one by one when the street was otherwise deserted.

"There's an entrance here," she said, tapping her feet methodically against the uniform stones, "or at least there was not very long ago. I don't think they would have sealed off one so close to a pub."

Edgar bent down to examine the street, then rapped his knuckles against the wall of the alley. Within seconds a section of wall slid aside, revealing a narrow shaft with a gated platform.

"Room for two," Sabin announced, squeezing himself inside.

Before Celes could respond, Edgar joined him. "Let us secure the area. We can always play lost tourists without fear of recognition, and the phonographs won't affect us."

Nothing indicated whether the elevator led to an empty hallway or a bustling lab, so there was no point in assuming either. "We'll be right behind you," Celes replied. Her throat tightened as Edgar secured the gate and sank underground.

The sudden warmth of Terra's hand over her heart startled her into reaching for her sword.

"I want you to know," Terra said, ignoring the jolt, "that it doesn't bother me now. The part of Shiva inside you isn't her true self. It's like... what did you call it, the music on the black disc?"

"A recording," Celes replied. Her pulse quickened.

Terra nodded, sighed, splayed her hand. "I can hear her, but she isn't speaking to me. She's recorded. She sounds different in you."

The clarity of cold eluded Celes entirely. Before she had worked out how or even whether to respond, the empty elevator rattled back up into place, its accordion gate folded back.

"I'm ready," said Terra, striding onto the platform. Her voice quavered only slightly. "When I save them, I can go home." As Celes pressed in beside her, her tone and smile came out lopsided: "I'll have a home to go to."

For a protracted moment Celes felt a web drawn between the ice under her veins, the wild magic pulsing under Terra's temporary skin, and the dead trickster laughing in her pocket. She drew the gate shut behind her and let the juddering descent of the elevator shake her loose.

 

* * *

At the bottom lay a dim gray hallway with only Edgar and Sabin in it, and neither appeared injured. The air was stale but cool. Just above the ceiling, the factory hummed and clanged.

As Celes tried to orient herself to the memory of north, Terra staggered clear of the elevator and doubled over, clutching her ears.

"There's one here," she managed, pushing away efforts to help her up. "Not as bad as before, but..." The conjunction dangled as she waved at a vague section of the ceiling. "Up there."

"I see it." Edgar took aim with his crossbow and fired. Wood cracked like a breaking branch and showered the floor with splinters.

Breathing hard, Terra lowered both hands to rest on her knees. Sweat slicked her forehead as she straightened up. "Thank you. There are more, but it's not as bad when they're not close."

Of course the Empire would have taken precautions after Ramuh's escape. Cid would almost certainly have been in charge, and Cid would have planted phonographs by every exit, with heavy clusters around the espers themselves. "Can you tell which direction is worst?" she asked. "We should able to follow them to the espers."

As Edgar picked through the remains of the phonograph, Terra closed her eyes and rose up on her toes. Despite the stillness of the air, her hair moved as if in a slight breeze. "I hear—"

"—footsteps," Sabin finished with her.

In the next moment keen senses were not required; multiple sets of heels clacked against the metal floor.

Running would only confirm their presence. Celes held up a hand and motioned for the others to creep after her in the opposite direction, but the nearest corner was too far to round in time. In her pocket, the magicite stirred against her like a hungry cat.

"Don't panic," she whispered. Cait Sith told her in rhyme how to lift everyone's feet a handbreadth above the floor, creating a cushion of air to swallow sound. Only Terra did not lose her balance as she rose.

They ran in impossible near-silence. Lack of friction sent them scrabbling to turn the corner, but Celes had almost time enough to slow her breathing before voices become audible:

"...spent more on facilities, wouldn't be so damn cold down here."

"You heard the boss. Budget's not going up 'til the number of espers does."

"Hmph. Maybe if it wasn't so cold, the breeding program would've worked."

Terra's lips curled back from her teeth, which now came to points. Sabin caught her arm.

The footsteps halted:

"Well, that must've been the noise. Who put that one up?"

"You think it just fell? Looks more like it exploded."

"Overheated, probably. Better check for surges or it'll be our heads tomorrow."

"Can you do it yourself? I'm meeting Lennie at the pub."

"Not anymore, loverboy. You get the west wing."

One set of feet approached in a cloud of muttering, prompting a silent sprint to what quickly proved a dead end. "Ventilation shaft looks wide enough," Edgar whispered. "Give me a boost."

Sabin lifted him until his upper body hooked over the lip of the pipe. After a moment's investigation, Edgar flashed an approving gesture and wriggled the rest of the way in.

Celes and Terra followed, the latter scraping fingernails like talons against Edgar's wrist. A leap unbounded by physics brought Sabin up after them. Cait Sith's spell continued warding gravity; they floated just above the bottom of the pipe.

"It's hard to hear anything," Terra whispered, echoing faintly. In the darkness of the pipe her eyes gleamed yellow, and her exposed skin shaded into a lambent pink. "It hurts."

Sabin put his hand on her shoulder. "Stay together. This's the last place you want to look like an esper."

Breathing hard, she closed her eyes and folded her hands over her pendant. Her skin darkened. When her eyelids parted again, no light spilled out. "We have to keep moving."

Edgar crawled ahead, the crossbow on his back scraping the ceiling. Terra offered directions whenever the path forked and gradually began to glow again, no matter how often she stopped to concentrate. Pink crept into her hair from the roots.

When crosshatched light rose from a downward bend in the pipe, Terra slowed, whined low in her throat, and curled up with her ears between her knees. "There's one here."

Sabin tore away the grating as quietly as possible, which wasn't very, then folded it up neatly and passed it back to Celes. He dangled Edgar carefully upside by his legs so that the latter could take aim with his crossbow but abruptly snatched him back up before shots were fired.

"Footsteps," Sabin mouthed, a moment before this was unnecessary.

Celes scooted closer to the edge to peer down at whoever was passing. It was a long way to the floor, so she could observe a fair portion of the hallway. The cadence of the steps made her stomach twist, and the giggling confirmed it; even before the wild colors came into view below, she recognized Kefka. Edgar's expression must have mirrored her own.

Terra raised her head, shaking, and Celes realized, with a dagger-sharp twinge, that Kefka must have excited the same senses that she did. Under their skin pulsed the same stolen power; only madness separated them. Had he not volunteered as the first Magitek Knight, she might have been the one laughing as she poured poison into Doma's river.

Kefka's giddy stagger gave away the purpose of his presence; he must have bullied Cid into another infusion, despite the shortage. Poison, perhaps, or fire. He had always been one to play favorites.

A dip too far to the right knocked his shoulder against a thin pipe. Snarling, Kefka bathed the metal in fire until it warped out of his way.

"Stupid old man," he muttered. "I'll show _him_ who's unstable." His whooping laughter echoed long after he'd turned the corner. For the first time, Celes wondered what unlucky espers were recorded in him.

When he had been gone long enough to be out of earshot, Sabin held Edgar's ankles again until the phonograph exploded.

When Terra looked up at Celes, her hair was wild but still mostly dark. "He's nothing like you," she whispered fiercely. "I can tell."

They waited in silence, breaths suspended, for someone to investigate the noise, but no one came. One by one they took the long drop down, their falls slowed by lingering magic, and reached the floor below. Their impacts were quiet but not silent; gravity was beginning to coax them all back down.

"This way," Celes decided, leading them in the direction from which Kefka had come. With any luck the espers were not imprisoned at the site of the infusions, and with a great deal of luck, the researchers might have all been present for what was done to Kefka.

At the end of the hallway, tiers of stairs rose up out of sight. Celes had long since lost track of their position beneath Vector; now they might well be climbing back above the surface. There were areas of the city off-limits even to generals, doorless buildings encased in solid steel.

Edgar began panting after half a dozen flights, prompting Sabin to lift him up and carry him, despite his protests. Terra's feet no longer touched the ground at regular intervals, though the rest of them no longer had more than a paper-thin cushion of air to walk on. There was no hint of green now in her eyes, which shone like tiny flames in the dim lighting.

The steps ended in a hallway lined with enormous glass capsules tangled in thick wires, all empty. Each could have comfortably held a pair of devoahans.

"Is this—" Edgar leapt free of his brother and swept his arm. "Where are they?"

They couldn't be dead, or Kefka would have been wearing their magicite as jewelry. Before Celes could answer, Terra ran ahead, then fell with a pained howl.

"I hear them," she growled between lupine teeth. "Everything hurts."

Hoping that Terra had meant it when she said that contact with stolen magic no longer bothered her, Celes wrapped an arm around her and motioned for Sabin and Edgar to hurry ahead. Terra shivered like a feverish rabbit. As Edgar poked at a door half-hidden by the corner of the hall, she pressed tight against Celes, breathing raggedly. Celes drew a gentle arc of frost across her sweat-slicked forehead.

"Looks like a magnetic seal," Edgar said. "Think you're up to breaking it, brother?"

Sabin cracked his knuckles. "It slides to the left, right?" Without waiting for an answer, he dug his fingers into the grooves on the right and pulled, muscles straining against his skin. The door held firm for five seconds before shooting leftward with such force that he scarcely saved his fingers.

The corner blocked Celes's view, but she could guess at it from the empty capsules in the hall and the ashen cast of Sabin's face.

Edgar swore in a whisper that carried back in echoes. At Sabin's prompting, he fired and shattered something wooden. Four explosions later, he said, "That's all I can see from here."

Terra raised her head but didn't stop shaking. "There's more."

"Then we're going in," said Sabin, voice almost steady. "There's no one in there. No one human, I mean."

Celes hadn't known, hadn't asked, hadn't understood the tightness around Cid's eyes when she proudly showed him that she could make icicles dangle from her fingers. She tried not to wonder how much screaming there had been while she slept.

Comforting words would be lies, so she held Terra in silence as Sabin and Edgar entered the heart of the lab. Another phonograph burst apart just above the inside of the doorway, whereupon Terra gulped air and pulled away. She more flew than ran.

When Celes caught up with her, Terra was still running, tearing frantic, sobbing paths between two rows of capsules. These were filled with a pale blue liquid, in which floated creatures so majestic and ruined that Celes staggered back a step, breathless. The dark one nearest the entrance had no shape she understood, only writhed like a dying fire.

There were no words—it was too monstrous for words—so Edgar hunted for the room's controls without speaking. Sabin punched in an impossibly fast flurry without breaking anything. Celes fed ice cold enough to crack metal into the base of a capsule and recoiled from an electric shock.

Sobbing, Terra halted in front of an esper with horns and withered digitigrade legs. Her lengthening claws shrieked against the glass without leaving a mark. "No," she growled, and her voice spiraled up into a screaming trance: "No, no, no, no!"

"Calm down!" Edgar shouted. "I've almost got—"

"No!" Terra drowned him out with a roar. "It's no good! You don't—they won't—" She shook her head, whipping her hair over her face. "They hurt so badly that all they can do is die. It's too late. They've been waiting to _die_."

When Sabin caught her shoulders to stop her shaking, her body began to glow like a collapsing star as her hair burst outward, entirely free of gravity. Talons shredded through her shoes. Clothing fell around her in scraps.

"She can't listen like this," said a muffled voice behind Celes. She turned to face the horned esper and realized, with a pain that bored through her, that he had like eyes and claws like Terra's.

His thin fingertips pressed against the glass. "There's no time. Take my magicite and put it in her hands. Let her know what I know." He was already fading like Ramuh, flesh into glass and blood into light. "Shatter us before you let the Empire take us."

"Don't—" was all she managed before the capsule exploded, spilling thick fluid and steaming magicite. The explosion echoed in domino lines as the other espers followed.

Above the din she could hear nothing but Terra's screams.

Sabin held on to her and moved his lips ( _calm down, please, we have to get out of here_ ), but his voice was drowned out. When he tried to pull Terra toward the door, she tore away from him and shot up toward the ceiling, trailing howls and fire.

She couldn't listen like this. Celes scooped up the magicite that had landed at her feet, hating that it felt coated in blood ( _hide in the mirror, slide through the mirror_ whispered a child's voice), and hurried after the next nearest piece. Shouting to Edgar and Sabin to do the same was lost in the noise, but they understood from watching her.

Terra would have to calm down and descend; the ceiling was solid steel. The greater concern was that she would burn herself out only after the lab's security forces arrived.

They gathered in the center of the room with fistfuls of magicite, slick as newborns and crying out with promises of power. She tucked away all of hers except for the one that had been Terra's father, which whispered _fire-ice-lightning_ in overlapping rounds and loved Terra so ferociously that Celes's heart clenched.

"I can get us out," she yelled, scarcely able to hear herself. "We just have to get Terra down."

"She just watched her father die," said Sabin. "It's hard to be okay after that." He scratched the back of his neck. "If I'd known blitzes then, there'd still be holes in the castle."

From above came a noise not unlike a castle cracking apart. Alarmed, Celes watched Terra peel back a plate of the red-hot metal roof with her hands.

"Is there a Plan B?" asked Edgar.

At Terra's range, no spell was likely to stay on target, let alone take her off-guard. Celes flicked her fingers over the magicite, one piece at a time, searching for a way to soothe, to build barriers, to fly faster than birds. In desperation she grabbed hold of Siren and loosed a silencing spell that fizzled in the air.

Terra burst into the sky like a shooting star in reverse. Quiet fell behind her.

"Plan B," Celes said heavily, "is chasing her."

"What the hell is this?" called a gruff voice that pricked her heart like a thorn. Cid's approach must have been covered by the noise, as he was already at the entrance to the lab by the time Celes turned. He halted there, dumbstruck, grinding glass under his shoe.

She caught Edgar's arm when he reached for his crossbow. "Don't. Please."

Cid didn't seem to notice the near-threat; his gazes darted from broken tube to broken tube, up to the torn ceiling, down to the puddles of fluid and shards of glass. His eyes fixed at last on Celes, as if she were the only sensible point in the room. "General Celes, what are you doing here? I've heard terrible rumors—"

"Which are probably true in the broad strokes," she cut in, looking away. "I'm no longer an Imperial general."

He was silent only a moment before replying, "If I had half your courage, I'd no longer be an Imperial scientist."

She looked back, lips parted for words that refused to come. When Edgar began to ask a question, red lights flashed to life overhead. From beyond came the thunder of doors crashing shut, and even the one Sabin had broken rocked back and forth.

Cid's mustache bristled. "We're in lockdown. That explosion must have damaged the capsules so badly that they've reversed their energy transfer."

Edgar sidled farther away from the controls he'd been attacking earlier as Sabin said, "And that means...?"

"This lab's going to explode, and good riddance to it." Cid inclined his head toward the eastern wall. "We can escape through the mines."

"No need." The magicite Celes drew from her pocket lilted and rhymed, showing her the blue-tinged mirror-image of the streets of Vector. She held out her free hand. "Hold on to me. I can get us out."

Cid regarded the capsules with a furrowed brow. "The espers—"

"Our _friend_ is grieving and quite possibly dangerous." Edgar took Celes's hand, with Sabin less than a beat behind. "Let's hurry."

When Cid's hand touched her arm (how long had his hands been spotted and wrinkled?), she traced the inverted world flat on the back of her eyelids and made distance a matter of perspective. For a twisting instant she was flat, as well, then grew solid again on the other side of the walls.

When she opened her eyes, she found streets, smoke, a sky without Terra in it, and scores of soldiers.

She braced for Kefka and instead watched the ranks part for Leo, who appeared briefly perplexed before discipline reasserted itself. He neither ordered an attack nor gestured for his troops to lower their weapons. "Celes."

No longer General Celes, nor did she want to be. She met his expression without altering hers. "Leo."

"I regret that we should meet against under such circumstances."

"As do I." Once she would have kept her tone as solid and flat as a frozen lake; now Celes felt her voice rising and allowed it. "They're worse than you know. Everything is worse than you know, because you've never allowed yourself to see."

Leo's expression didn't waver. "Professor Cid, what triggered the alarms? Shall I consider you a hostage?"

"Central lab's blowing up." As if on cue, an explosion roared behind him, presumably through the hole Terra had left in the roof. "And please don't consider me anything of the sort. I need an immediate audience with the emperor."

This elicited a frown. "That won't be possible."

"That's okay, that part can wait," said Sabin, shifting the tips of several dozen swords to point at him. "Have you seen anyone pink go flying off recently?"

When Leo didn't respond, Celes willed herself calm and added, "She's incredibly powerful and very upset. If you give a damn about protecting this city, you'll tell us which way she went."

"You betray the Empire, return to sabotage it, and would have me believe you're acting now in Vector's best interests?" Leo's tone was steady; anyone less acquainted with him might have missed the tension in his hands.

Celes gestured for silence when Cid opened his mouth. In her mind she measured words like grains, leveling and weighing until she knew she must either speak or forfeit the opportunity. "Kefka poisoned Doma. With official sanction. Before you argue, tell me why Gestahl called you away during the siege."

All weapons focused on her. Leo tightened his jaw but said nothing.

"And Narshe would likely have been a second Doma," Edgar added, "if the city hadn't evacuated to Figaro." He held out his hand to let his royal ring catch the light. "King Edgar of Figaro, by the way, since you seem to be inclined to trust monarchs. If we had time, I'd let you meet my refugees."

Sabin jerked his thumb at the smoking facility behind them. "We just watched espers kill themselves because the Empire's been torturing them for years."

"Nearly two decades," Cid amended. "When I expressed reservations, Kefka threatened my life and Celes's."

This she hadn't known; Celes swallowed the frozen lump in her throat. "In Maranda," she said, and watched Leo tense further, "I was ordered to kill civilians. This isn't just Kefka; it's _policy_. That's what I turned my back on, not the people of Vector."

The factory hummed; the smoke thickened; somewhere, Terra's grief and rage drove her ever farther out of reach.

"Stand down," said Leo, and the soldiers complied without hesitation. "We'll discuss this with the emperor later." He paused before adding, "I saw a light moving eastward."

With a faint hint of relief, Edgar said, "So she's not headed for Figaro. What's east of here?"

"Just an old outpost," Celes replied. "There's nothing—" the Empire didn't build outposts for nothing— "there's something important enough for manned fortifications."

Edgar caught her gaze and held it. "The gate to the esper world?"

And beyond it waited espers with every motive to exact revenge and no gods to quiet them outside their borders. "If we don't stop her, she'll come back with an army."

In all the years of Celes's acquaintance, Leo had never appeared so rattled. "Emperor Gestahl himself rode out in that direction today with our finest battalion. I objected, but he declared this a matter too delicate for Kefka and ill-suited to my qualifications."

Misty thoughts crystallized into sharp, intricate frost. Celes's voice came out cold enough to burn: "Because he's leading a raid on the esper world. That's why the facility here was so poorly guarded; why would he care about dying espers when he found out the seal had been lifted on new ones?"

"It's going to be a bloodbath," Edgar said grimly.

Countless espers murdered or enslaved, or a battalion slaughtered by avenging espers on their way to burn Vector to slag and ashes. Celes's fingers brushed the magicite that sang _fire-ice-lightning-Terra-Terra-Terra_ deeper than sound.

Leo's troops parted to let them run toward the chocobo stables. No one said aloud that they couldn't possibly ride quickly enough to arrive in time.


	6. Metamorphosis

They were dead.

They were dead and she had done nothing to stop it.

They were dead and they would never stop being dead and their murderers lived on, but _that_ she could stop.

Nothing else mattered. Burn away the human part, the taint of treachery, the irredeemable darkness. Burn away to magic and will, and let the only will be the will of the magic. A moment's hesitation would grow to eat her alive.

She shot screaming above the city into the sky that was all wrong, so high it hurt to breathe. Nothing that tugged at her tugged half so strongly as home, even if that home could never be hers; her heart belonged nowhere. Grass and mountains and humanity stripped away as she chased gravity into the dark.

But humanity followed; from behind her came the droning that sought to strip away her power. The fear of losing control was so small against the horror of being caged.

She cried out to the fire, and the fire poured out in floods. Molten pools burst into fountains. The humans screamed until her fire consumed every trace of them, their screams and flesh and droning. She flew on, trailing flames through the darkness. Burn it all away. Scatter their ashes. Rip away their sky.

Everything was so small now, the mountain and the lightning and the void. Beyond she heard the howling of blood; she howled back the agony that she could not put into words. Stones melted away like hoarfrost under her hands.

Their magic sang in screams as they spilled out to join her. Power echoed, amplified, wove a burning web between them. They could tear this world asunder. This world deserved to be torn.

They tore through fire and darkness and dragged it with them outside.


	7. Dancing Mad

They hadn't ridden far past the gates before the eastern sky roiled into a living storm. At its head it burned a pink light that arced toward Vector like a shooting star. There was no telling how many espers followed, how long they would take to arrive, how swiftly they could fall over the city like a barbed cloak and tear it to pieces in the dark.

Above the emotions coiling up inside Celes floated the relief that Terra was still alive, and all her dread could not quite drag it down.

Leo spoke first, his face gray and his knuckles white around his reins: "We're already too late."

She envisioned Gestahl torn apart by the forces he sought to enslave, reduced to dust and ashes with no warm stone to preserve his echo. Her pity reserved itself for the soldiers he led. "Some of the battalion might have survived," she said unconvincingly. "And it's not too late for the city. We have to evacuate immediately."

"Where?" asked Edgar. "We can't get the entire city out through the gates."

This wasn't Narshe, with time enough to prepare and tunnels enough to sneak most of a population clear of the violence. Already more people than lived in all of Narshe had spilled into the streets to swell a collective panic. They had minutes, not hours.

"The research facility's mostly underground," said Cid, raising his voice above the din. "The labs are in lockdown, but the factory shouldn't be. The defenses would at least slow the espers down."

"Then we have to get as many as we can into the factory." In the distance roared something unlike thunder. Celes tugged the reins of her nervous chocobo and said to Leo, "These people trust you. If we're to have any hope..."

She let the sentence hang unfinished as he nodded, still ashen. With a steady voice he issued commands to his soldiers and rode back into the streets with Cid, attracting a trail of worried citizens. Already the sky grew darker with the advent of dusk and destruction.

Edgar frowned after them. "We can't very well go door-to-door. You have an alarm system here, don't you?"

"Just outside the palace." Celes dug her heels into her chocobo's side and leaned forward against its neck. Her hood flew back behind her; she wondered how many people would recognize her, how high a bounty was on her head, how likely anyone was to care when the end of the world came chasing the sun.

She got her answer when she rode into a street so crowded that no one was able to make way for her, had they been inclined to look away from the sky. The city walls blocked most of the view but did nothing against the noise.

Sabin caught up to her as she dismounted. "Coming through," he boomed, lifting up and setting aside a large merchant. Edgar hurried ahead to fill the space.

Reaching the palace wall cost them most of the minutes that Celes feared they had left. She sprinted along the outer walkway, staying well clear of the Guardian at the gates, and paused only to draw her sword at the base of the transmission tower. The one guard remaining inside caught enough of Edgar's silencing spell to reduce his voice to a squeak.

Celes left him cocooned in ice against the wall opposite the enormous control panels. "I'm sorry," she said brusquely as she passed him. "Edgar, how fast can you figure out how this works?"

"Already there," he replied, twiddling one of a dozen identical dials. When he flipped two switches in succession, the emergency signal began to wail above them. "Help me find the microphone."

Sabin unearthed a dusty one from beneath a coil of wires. After dialing the siren down to a distant whine, Edgar flipped switches and breathed into the microphone until the noise echoed as a crackling boom.

"Citizens of Vector," he began, then paused to adjust the distance between the microphone and his mouth. "This is not a drill." Another pause. "You're on," he whispered, shoving the microphone into Celes's hand.

She almost protested before realizing that she could offer coherent directions to shelter. There was not time to waste wondering what effect her voice would have on those recognized it. "The city is under aerial assault. Please proceed to the Magitek Factory immediately. If you don't know where the nearest entrance is, head east past the We Love Tourists Inn in the south quarter. If you are unable to reach the factory, seek shelter underground." She moved to return the microphone, then pulled it back long enough to add, urgently, "This is not a drill."

Nodding, Edgar, fiddled with the dials until the siren blared again. "Now what?"

"You get everyone underground. There's a service entrance off the southern plaza. And you get underground, too, private," Celes added, drawing out the magicite that had been Terra's father. A careful wash of heat melted the guard free.

For a moment he looked as if he wanted to fight, but the sound of a not-terribly-distant explosion sent him running.

"And you?" asked Sabin, catching her shoulder as she headed for the door.

The magicite burned in her palm like ice and salt. "I'm going to find Terra and bring her back to her senses."

Sabin did not let go. "Uh. How?"

Something outside burst apart. The narrow window of the control room blazed red. "Top of the palace. Her father's magicite. You two go and—"

"Help you get up there?" Edgar raised an eyebrow. "I'm certain we didn't come all the way here to let you take suicidal risks by yourself."

She didn't argue. She didn't even want to argue. "Then keep up," was all she said on her way out.

Already smoke rose from the eastern quarter. The espers were close enough now to be audible even above the clamor in the streets, a cacophony of shrieks and roars and wings so loud as to be nearly palpable. When Celes rounded the corner, a building exploded near the outer wall.

The Guardian still waited outside the palace gates. The icicle Celes shot at it was vaporized mid-flight by a glowing beam.

She held up a hand to stop Edgar and Sabin out of the machine's range. "I was present when Cid tested this. It's the most powerful Magitek weapon in the Empire."

Sabin cracked his knuckles. "So we just have to take out the guy inside it, right?"

"It's unmanned."

"Then who's controlling it?" asked Edgar, eyeing the Guardian with naked fascination.

"It controls itself. Someone sets up rules for it somehow. I don't know." Celes shifted her grip on her sword. "I should be able to absorb some of its attacks. And it's stationery, so if we run—"

Mingled lightning and fire struck a hole through the courtyard beyond the gates. Celes ducked against the inner wall with Edgar a beat behind, positioning himself to cover her. A second bolt blasted apart one of the palace's exposed engines. The third hit the Guardian itself, which fired beams in all directions before its emissions turned to black smoke. Subsequent strikes moved south, ruining streets and structures alike.

Pushing Edgar aside, Celes sent a line of frost toward the Guardian. It struck hot metal and sizzled.

They ran past the smoking remains into the courtyard, where they pressed against the walls and tried to stay out of sight. Though the sky had gone eclipse-dark, magic and fire lit the city brighter than its streetlamps. A section of the palace's northern wall burst into shrapnel, letting in the chaos of the northern quarter. Mingled with the explosions were the screams of those who had not made it underground.

Not long ago Celes had stood so high atop the palace that the population was a faceless swarm below, their cheers a wordless buzz. Now an esper with hooked, leathery wings screamed circles around the highest point, shredding what was left of the air force.

It had a name and a home, she knew now, and perhaps a family. The stolen magic inside her sang to it. Whatever song it sang in return was of wiping out all of Vector in an act of retaliatory genocide.

"Hurry," she barked, though they could only move so fast over ground increasingly pocked with craters. Metal plates melted and dripped down into the darkness below.

Inside there was no one to stop them. No doubt the guards had already retreated to the bunkers; procedure dictated that they escort the emperor, but there was no emperor to escort. When Celes ran toward the shortest route to the top of the palace, a mangled section of the roof landed in her way.

"Wait," she called to Sabin, who was sizing it up. The red metal cooled under her snow shower. At her nod, he hefted the mass high enough for her and Edgar to pass beneath, then hurled it to the opposite end of the main hall.

The stairs shuddered beneath their feet, threatening to crack apart with every step. The walls rocked to pieces, sheet by sheet and pipe by pipe. Crashing noises rose from below. When Celes emerged onto the lowest tier of the roof, something shoved her hard from behind.

She threw her arms out for balance as she staggered to a stop. Turning, she saw Sabin dangling by one hand from the inner edge of the doorway, Edgar clinging to his other wrist, the stairwell fallen away beneath them.

"Keep going!" Sabin shouted. "We'll catch up!"

Instead she dug Cait Sith's magicite from her pocket and eased gravity's grip on him. Sabin pulled himself up high enough to toss Edgar onto the roof, then heaved himself after with the silence of a feather. Even the sweat rolling off him plashed just above the floor.

Only two sets of footsteps clanged as the three took the sharp corner to the next flight of steps. The sky above was darkness streaked with fire (she remembered it yellow, thick with smog, the day she cheered Gestahl's rallying cry to unmake the world). One streak that was not fire blazed pink: Terra.

As she crested the top of the stairs, only one tier now from the top, she heard laughter and slow, mocking applause.

Kefka waited just inside the iron doorway ahead, settled into the throne that should have been downstairs, his wild colors all tinged red by the light of the apocalypse. He leaned forward, grinning like a skull, and sowed a wall of flames behind her before she had her sword ready. Edgar and Sabin stopped short behind it.

Gritting her teeth, she raised her blade and prepared to catch whatever he hurled next.

"The emperor is dead," he announced, drawing a finger in a swift line across his throat. His grin nearly reached his ears. "Long live the emperor."

Not even the ghost of Celes's loyalty cared whether this was in keeping with Gestahl's plans for his succession. "Get out of my way," she said evenly. "I'm trying to save the city."

"Oh, why bother?" Kefka gestured in annoyance, jangling bells along his sleeves. "They'll wear themselves out, and then they'll be mine for the taking. I can't wait for that pretty pink one to come crashing down."

"The palace will come crashing down first," she pointed out, swallowing the urge to rush at him. "Get out of my way, or you'll die, too."

He chuckled. "Your concern is _touching_ , but you really should worry more about yourself."

In a blink he had sprung to his feet and scattered fire from his fingertips. Celes came within a heartbeat of failing to intercept them. The icicles she readied in retaliation had no chance to solidify before Kefka cast again.

"Such an annoying little trick Cid gave you!" He wagged a finger as her sword drank the spell. "But how much _can_ you absorb, hmm?" Lightning leapt from his hand to the tip of her blade, suffusing her with another heady dose of magic. "Will you bloat like a sponge, or will you burst like a balloon?"

All she knew was that Cid had warned her against absorbing too much, too fast. Cid never warned idly.

The fire spell she caught next dizzied her. Grimacing, she tried to push the power back at him in the form of a blizzard, but she hadn't even felt a chill in her hands before she had to intercept a cloud of poison. Whatever he had infused himself with had left him impossibly fast.

Celes took the next spell with a swing of her sword, propelling herself toward Kefka. He jumped back, off-balance, and gave her time to shape some of her excess into ice pellets that tore his sleeves and left lines of blood on his cheeks.

"Hush," he hissed, and she raised her sword a moment too late; a silencing spell grabbed her by the throat and locked the raging magic inside her. Fire spells poured into her sword with the intensity of a volcanic eruption, forcing her to her knees.

A massive wave washed over them both from behind.

"Where the hell did you find more Magitek traitors?" Scowling, Kefka turned and aimed raw lightning at Sabin, which Celes sucked back. Her vision swam.

Sabin must have leapt out of range, because Kefka's attention snapped back to her: "This is getting old now, Celes." When he blasted her with another round of lightning, she couldn't tell how much she caught and how much struck her; she burned and crackled on both sides of her skin.

Kefka's laughter drowned out all else. She pitched forward on the slanting metal of the roof (the palace was collapsing, there wasn't enough time), half-blind and swollen with explosive energy. Her left hand fumbled over the magicite that mattered and clutched it tight.

The laughter skidded upward into a shriek.

Blood soaked Kefka's back where a cluster of quarrels had pierced through his shoulder. It wasn't enough to kill him—things like Kefka never died easily—but it was enough to change his target. Blinding white magic arced through the air, but toward him rather than away from him. Red sparks fizzled in his hands as his voice vanished.

Something burst in the darkness past the edge of Celes's vision; she had to trust that Edgar dodged it. Gritting her teeth, she dragged herself up, magicite burning and freezing and crackling against her palm, and drove her sword through Kefka's side.

The magic struggling to burst out of her skin shot down the blade. Her right arm seized as if all its nerves had split open and cauterized themselves in an instant. Screaming or laughing or both, Kefka contorted and sprayed blood.

She held on, shaking, to watch him die.

"Lucky that worked," said Sabin's voice from behind her. "I was worried I'd miss and hit you, instead." She saw rather than felt his hand touch her arm. "Edgar! You okay?"

A coughing figure coated in ash emerged from around a corner, favoring his left leg. "Never better. Swap with me again; I keep healing my shoes."

Shaking her head, Celes fumbled her good arm into her pocket, tucked away Terra's father, and came up with the stone that sang of purification. Sabin took it from her, closed his eyes, and directed pale light into her throat. Her muscles relaxed so abruptly that she coughed.

"Take care of his leg," she said when Sabin tried to force a palmful of healing into her insensate arm. "I don't think we can fix this." When she drew back, leaving her sword in Kefka, blood squelched under her shoes. "Thank you."

Edgar frowned at her as Sabin laid hands on him. "What happened to your arm?"

"I don't know. It doesn't matter right now."

Terra spiraled overhead like a star sucked into a maelstrom. One of the giant cranes lay cracked and smoldering across the northern face, leaving the top tier with little promise of cover. It was no place for a soldier, so Celes approached unarmed.

The ladder riveted to the wall had lost several feet of its base. With Sabin's help, she hooked her good arm around a high rung. When she pulled her legs up after her, the esper with the hooked wings swooped down, screeching, and drove Edgar and Sabin back. It ignored her entirely, no doubt because of the stolen magic inside her. For the moment all that mattered was that she could still climb.

"Don't fight it!" she shouted over the din. "I'll meet you in the factory!"

They hesitated, but when the esper dived again, Sabin grabbed Edgar and took a short, magic-slowed leap to a lower projection. Celes climbed with her legs, using her good arm for balance and twisting her torso to keep her bad one from catching in the rungs.

The crane was trickier; it shook in the unnatural winds, and the muscles of her thighs burned as she she eased her way up its arm, wincing at every creak. The trick was not to look down. She fixed her eyes on Terra, who was so near now that Celes could see the rage twisting her face.

Wrapping her legs tight around the crane (don't look down), she drew out the magicite that had been Terra's father. It warmed and throbbed like an anxious heart.

Nothing happened.

Celes drew a deep breath and shouted, "Terra!" This time the crane listed as it creaked, pitching her forward. A glimpse of the burning world far below branded itself on her eyes before she managed to raise her head again. "Terra!"

The stone echoed her ( _fire-ice-lightning-Terra-Terra-Terra_ ), so she listened, and closed her eyes, and let it flow through her. Like magic, but deeper; like Shiva coming to life inside her; like runic in reverse. Cold washed through her, soothing and mind-clearing.

The world slowed as Terra descended, teeth bared but eyes uncertain, and curled her hand over Celes's and the magicite. Something more vivid than pain lanced in, out, and through. All other noise was swallowed up in a sound that rang inside her skull, a wordless voice made of storms and waterfalls.

Still out of sync with time, Celes tumbled off the crane and felt Terra's claws dig into her wrist. They landed on the edge of the roof, bound by blood and magicite.

"Terra?" said Celes, because she didn't know which question to ask first. Her wrist stung as the claws pulled out, taking the magicite with them.

Terra bent forward, clutching the stone to her chest with both hands, and let her hair hide her face as she wept. Her voice came out hoarse and broken: "I couldn't think. I didn't think. I forgot everything. I—I killed children."

No denial would help. "You did."

"I'm no better than they are."

Terra hadn't tortured them for years in a laboratory, but this was too fine a point to make under the circumstances. Instead Celes rested her good hand on Terra's shoulder and said, "You can be."

Breathing shakily, Terra raised her head. Tears refracted the glow of her eyes.

"You've seen what happens when you don't control your power. Control it, and you can stop this from getting any worse. I—" Celes paused during a nearby explosion that drowned out her voice. "I still trust you."

Choking back a sob, Terra grabbed both her hands and held them tight. Celes could feel nothing in her right, not even a suggestion of pressure.

Frowning, Terra said, "Your arm—"

"It's fine." Celes twisted her upper body to pull it away. "I'll take care of it. Just stop them."

Terra bit her lip, then blazed upward into the fire-dyed sky, a bright knife ripping through dark fabric. When she vanished to the south, Celes drew her cloak back with her working hand and poked at her arm. It hung like a dead thing, utterly numb from the shoulder down. Her skin had turned the waxy white of frostbite.

Beneath her the palace creaked and tilted west.

Cait Sith's magicite lay somewhere at the bottom of a pocket, but she couldn't keep her footing without holding on to a steel beam, and she had only one arm with which to hold. She pinched her lips together, mind racing, and tried to calculate how long she'd have to cast the spell if she let herself fall. She tried not to wonder whether the damage to her arm had stoppered her magic.

Black smoke rose below her and flattened into a cloud. When a gust of wind blew the ash away, Ramuh's beard shimmered in the red light.

"Come aboard," he said, and Celes leapt.

* * *

 

From high above, the city looked like scattered embers in a vast hearth. So few buildings still stood; in the northern and eastern quarters raged the most ravenous flames, and the fallen palace crushed a swath of the west. Celes looked away when Maranda began to superimpose itself.

"I should have accompanied her," Ramuh said heavily. "Better I should have wasted to nothing in captivity than allowed this weight to fall upon her shoulders. The coward watches his own feet so closely that he cannot see the pit in his companion's path."

"You're not the only one who didn't see." Celes curled her good arm around her legs and felt stones pressing through her pocket. "Your friends' magicite saved our lives," she added. "Thank you."

Ahead Terra flickered against the chaos, weaving patterns around the other espers. Leather wings and iridescent feathers, mosaic scales and variegated fur, humanoid animals and living landforms, the towering and the tiny, the beautiful and the bizarre: one by one they ceased their attacks and drifted above the clouds. Those that passed nearest had fever-muddled eyes and huddled postures, as if they were trying to wake from nightmares. Once gathered, they turned to the northeast.

"Where is she taking them?" Celes asked.

"To the remnant of the sacred in this world, to restore their senses." Ramuh waves his staff in wide spirals as he spoke, swelling the clouds around them with rain. "I've sensed the echo of the gods' voices, but I would not myself stand before even their dimmest reflection."

Vector steamed in the downpour. Celes pulled off her cloak and let the rain wash over her, imagined it riming her dead arm. Inside she felt raw and hollow, as if she'd scrubbed away everything that didn't belong and some of what did. Outside she felt only heavy.

She opened her eyes and met Ramuh's. "I promised to meet my friends at the factory," she said. "We need to search for survivors."

"Then allow me to search at your side."

The air thickened with smoke as they descended. Rainwater filled every shallow depression and poured endlessly into the chasms in the streets. Broken steel rafters formed a jumbled heap near the southern entrance to the factory, but there was space enough to pass beneath and between them, skirting craters.

Inside the emergency lights glowed scarlet. Ramuh halted just inside the door and said, "This place repels me. I will begin searching nearby."

"I should have thought of that." Celes glanced down the hall, then turned back to nod at him. "Stay safe. I'll join you soon." And then she was alone with the echoes of her footsteps and the water dripping from her clothes, the only sounds in the eerie silence of the factory. Exhaustion and the strange weight of her arm made her cling to the railing to keep her balance on the stairs.

Two flights down she heard the first muttering of humanity. When she knocked on the door at the bottom of the stairs, it opened on a hangar teeming with people, thick and loud as bees. The woman who answered the door lowered a lightning-infused sword and waved Celes inside.

Her eyes ached and her head throbbed. Above the swarm of faces she spotted Sabin's head, less than a second before he turned and met her eyes.

"You made it!" he boomed, squeezing through the crowd with Edgar limping behind him. "Had us worried _sick_ —" Celes's feet left the ground as he grabbed her in a quick, damp bearhug— "and Terra?"

Celes's balance returned slowly, thrown off by her right arm. "She's—" not all right— "herself again. She's leading the espers away. It's over."

Edgar embraced her, and she allowed him.

"How many?" she whispered.

"More than would have been saved without us." He patted her cold arm and frowned as he let her go. "If you're able, we could use some help with the wounded. Sabin and I have the worst of them stabilized, at least, but we're running out of steam."

Her lips moved as she delved into the changed spaces inside herself and clumsily dragged light into her left hand. "I'll do what I can," she said, directing the tiny spell into Edgar's leg. "Ramuh's outside—he's putting the fires out and looking for survivors. Where are Cid and Leo?"

"We brought Leo back with us." Sabin pointed toward what looked like a makeshift infirmary in one of the bays. "We had to pull him out of some rubble—he got caught getting people out of an inn. He's got broken ribs and some burns, but nothing too serious."

Celes's stomach dropped. "And Cid?"

Sabin looked away. "An explosion went off right next to him. He's—it was bad. I'm sorry."

 _(I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't see. Talk to me. Come over for dinner. Talk to me.)_ Celes shook her head and forced her breaths steady. "Can you two put together search parties without starting a panic?"

"Of course." Edgar touched her arm again as if he expected this to eventually fix it. "One of us will come back when it's safe to bring people to the surface again."

Once they were gone, Celes mended burns and bones until she was dry inside, then knelt beside the blanket-covered silence of Cid. His fingers were limp and cold in her hand. Everything she wanted to say fought its way toward her tongue, but what did any of it matter unless he heard?

Leo appeared beside her, midsection wrapped tight with bandages and face half-hidden by gauze. She looked up at him without releasing Cid's hand. "I'm sorry," he said.

There was no response she trusted herself to make.

He was silent for several long seconds, hand held steady in a martyr's salute, before asking, "What's the situation above ground?"

"It's over," she replied, surprised by the steadiness of her own voice. "The attack, the city, the Empire—all of it. The espers are calm. Kefka's dead."

Reading his expression was more difficult than ever when he had only half an expression to read. The creases around his eye and mouth deepened. "We shouldn't rebuild Vector," he said at last.

"No." Somewhere in the north Terra would stand before the echoes of her gods; Celes almost wished she had something so simple to pass judgment on her. She had guilt and wreckage and the faceless dead, and nothing coherent enough to condemn or absolve. "We're going to have to start over."


	8. From That Day On

The gods could not absolve her; it meant nothing to be absolved by gods who had sundered the world with their own war. Nevertheless Terra remained in the vestiges of their presence, shaking and stunned but safe, in the company of the espers she had dragged into her madness. When Ramuh came for her, she understood that she didn't want to hide, nor could she.

Nor could he, he told her, and they found that they could carry each other where they could not bear to walk alone.

It took more strength than Terra had known she had to stand before the elder, to give an account of herself and demand an account in return, to lay the magicite to rest in the sacred cove. The worst part was realizing that the espers had lied about so much for so long because they were afraid of her.

Even those who had wanted to open the gate did not want what had come after. Even Yura would sooner have cut out his own tongue.

When her strength ran out, Terra sought solitude above the ruins of the gate. She tried to separate what she regretted from what she did not, but too many edges bled together: the dark horror of Vector could not snuff out the lights beyond it, no more than the kindness of humans could wash away the stain of the lab. All her guilt and grief could not diminish the complicated fluttering of her heart when Ramuh had crossed the threshold of the world and wept.

In the end she left it all tangled and painful and overwhelming, because it was. The gate was forever open; the dead were forever dead; what had changed was still changing, and would change again.

Her heart still belonged, but not in the way she used to wish. She understood when she breathed familiar air beneath a familiar sky and knew that she had become unfamiliar.

* * *

 

The humans could not absolve her, but she expected no absolution. When her friends met her on the other side, the knots inside her tightened until she could no longer hope to pick them apart. "I'm so sorry" was all she managed before their arms opened for her. Even the tears she left on their shoulders flowed from jumbled emotions.

The espers behind her waited in silence while she explained herself as best she could without delving too deep. Yura sniffed the air loudly but said nothing, even when his broad ears must have picked up her whispers.

"But I'm only the ambassador if they'll accept me," Terra finished. "If you'll accept me."

Thin-faced and ring-eyed, Celes embraced Terra with the arm that was not in a sling. "What would I be if I didn't?" Quieter, she added, "I'm glad to see you again. I've been worried about you."

Edgar patted her shoulder. "You'll always be welcome in Figaro, if you need a place to stay once everything settles down. Both of you."

Celes nodded absently. "I don't want to think about it until after the funeral. I—there's too much."

Beneath Terra heard clearly, _And I don't belong there. I don't know where I belong._ A space inside her that had been clenched tight opened to give the words a place to echo. "I need to stay near here," she replied. "I'm still keeping the gate, just... differently."

She caught Celes's gaze and held it until Sabin said, "Well, you've gotta at least promise you'll visit," and thumped her on the back.

 

* * *

The only human left to speak for the Empire was a tall man with fresh scars on his face, who introduced himself as Leo. Terra didn't know how to apologize to him, nor what to say when he apologized to her. She spoke for her people only uncertainly, but she was certain that she had to do more than speak.

"What we've done to your people is as inexcusable as what you've done to ours," he said. "We have come here today not to incriminate or exonerate, but to find our way forward."

"Forward" she understood, or thought she might learn to. Her tongue felt thick and clumsy around the words she'd practiced: "There can never again be a seal, so we can't just keep ourselves apart. We can't make peace out of distance."

Behind him lay the scattered tents of those who came to gawk and those who still made camp outside the twisted ruin of Vector for lack of anywhere better to go. Behind her waited half a dozen espers, tense and wary in an alien world. The grass stirred beneath them, here in the fields between where blood had been shed, and Leo offered her his hand.

Afterward she left Leo conversing with Yura and wandered off in search of Celes, whom she found sitting alone at the edge of the woods. "I think it's going to work out," Terra said, settling in beside her. "They're listening to each other, at least."

Celes nodded, still staring off into the distance. When Terra took her left hand and squeezed it, she smiled shakily and squeezed back.

The song under her skin was almost unfamiliar now, jumbled and broken and scarcely Shiva's. By the time nightfall sent them to rejoin the others, Terra could not imagine the silence without it.

Everything remained tangled and painful and overwhelming, so she felt honest telling herself that living between was not the same as running away.

* * *

 

They built their cabin west of the ruins of the outpost, in view of the bridge. Celes was absent for most of its construction; Leo needed her, she said, and so did what was left of Vector, though Terra suspected that she was at least as motivated by the need to mourn alone.

Terra felt that she hadn't contributed much to the construction, either. But it was comforting to live in a place built by her friends; she didn't need to see herself in the structure when she could see Edgar in the design, Sabin in the beams, Yura in the walls, Ramuh in the roof. When Yura asked her when she would come home, she told him, without hesitation, that she already had.

She wondered if her mother had lived nearby, before the Empire filled the valley with steel. Sometimes she sat on the roof at night, human-shaped, beneath stars that moved slowly but still _moved_ , and felt her worlds blur together.

Sometimes Celes joined her, and eventually Celes stopped pestering her about clothing.

 

* * *

She could not absolve herself. She carried it with her always, etched deep under her skin. Sometimes the nightmares woke her screaming, and she learned that Celes carried her own fire that never went out, that left her shaking under a layer of cold sweat. Celes understood that phrases like "right mind" and "free will" and "redemption" meant nothing at all in the dark.

In the light they sat in the kitchen, windows open to let in the sun, and brewed the last of the red tea Ramuh had sent home with them. Terra was due to visit again soon; she had to explain to the elder that the human village near the statues of the gods had concerns about a proposed esper settlement.

Celes swirled the teapot gently and poured for them both. She was better now with her left hand, though she sometimes moved as if she expected her right arm to slide out of its sling and function again. Terra was accustomed now to the cool, waxy feel of the limb, just as she was accustomed to the almost-esper echoes under the rest of Celes's skin.

A pigeon landed on the windowsill with a letter tied to its leg. Terra scratched beneath its chin and offered it a handful of seeds.

"Spoil it after we get the letter," said Celes without any particular reproach. She pulled the knot loose and unrolled the paper over the table, holding the top flat with her teacup.

Terra let the pigeon perch on her finger, where its tiny talons vanished beneath her fur, and asked, "Well? Who sent it?"

"It opens with 'Fairest Ambassadresses.'"

"Ah." Terra smiled and stroked a wing. "Edgar."

Celes skimmed the letter in silence for a few seconds. "He and Sabin are well. Sabin has been helping extensively with the reconstruction efforts in Narshe. We are also reminded that we're missed, and we're always welcome to, quote, 'brighten Figaro with your beauty.'" She caught Terra's eye and quirked an eyebrow, eliciting another smile. Letting the paper roll back up, Celes added, "Only when you're ready."

The pigeon hopped to the windowsill as Terra nodded. Facing crowds of humans unnerved her and led to meetings with Leo at the edge of the wild. Celes still traveled with her to the former Imperial cities, and had offered to do so until Terra felt able to stand alone before those whose blood she had spilled.

Figaro, at least, she had only threatened.

"We should bring some of the older espers," she decided, "and thaw Valigarmanda. He's been sleeping for a thousand years; he should wake up to familiar faces."

Celes recorded the significance of this around her eyes, but she kept her voice light as she said, "And I'm sure Edgar would be pleased to have him out of the basement."

Facing crowds of espers still unnerved Celes, but she never lost her poise when she visited the esper world with Terra; her fear and grief buried themselves too deep for her to take command of or comfort from any emotional outburst. Terra never knew whether to be envious of this.

Writing was easier with blunt nails, so Terra closed her eyes and felt the breeze on her bare skin. The pigeon cooed at her before returning to its hunt for stray seeds. After finishing a sip of tea, Celes passed her a pen and a clean sheet of paper.

Logistical details could wait. She sent the pigeon back with two words: "I'm ready."


End file.
